Washington—The Washington Capitals beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights 6-2 on Monday to move within one win of the first NHL Stanley Cup championship in their 43-year history.
The Capitals now lead the best-of-seven Stanley Cup finals three-games-to-one and will try to finish off the Golden Knights in game five in Las Vegas on Thursday.
The Caps withstood a quick opening barrage from Vegas, scoring three first-period goals to seize control.
Russian Evgeny Kuznetsov produced four assists, including one on T.J. Oshie’s power-play goal 9:54 into the first period to open the scoring.
Nicklas Backstrom with three assists and Oshie with a goal and two assists had three points apiece and goalie Braden Holtby made 28 saves for Washington.
“One win away – it’s the hardest one,” said Washington captain Alex Ovechkin, whose assisted on Devante Smith-Pelly’s goal with 21 seconds left in the first.
That strike made it 3-0 after Tom Wilson’s goal at 16:26.
The Golden Knights had looked more likely to take charge, producing five of the game’s first seven shots.
But James Neal missed from point-blank range — just one of a string of Vegas shots to clank off the post — and the close call appeared to galvanize the Caps.
Oshie scored from the slot off the rebound of a Kuznetsov shot, collecting the puck with his skate and firing over Marc-Andre Fleury.
Wilson scored off a give-and-go with Kuznetsov and Smith-Pelly scored from below the left circle.
“We knew this game was very important for us,” Ovechkin said. “Obviously we have a little bit of luck on our side, they hit the post. But we just grinded it out, we use our chances, stick to the system, stick to the plan, and we get the result.”
Vegas coach Gerard Gallant called it a “frustrating” first period.
“I thought we played our best period of the finals so far,” he said. “We hit two posts, we had some good chances and we got nothing out of it.”
John Carlson made it 4-0 with a one-timer from the left circle on a power-play at 15:23 of the second before Vegas narrowed the deficit with goals from Neal and Reilly Smith in the third.
Fleury made 17 saves for the Golden Knights, but Michal Kempny scored just 1:13 after Smith to stretch Washington’s lead to 5-2 and Brett Connolly scored a 5-on-3 power-play goal to make it 6-2 with less than two minutes remaining.
Vegas have now lost three straight games – after losing three games total in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
They face a mountain to climb to become the first debut team in major US sports history to win the title in the first season of their existence.
The last NHL team to rebound from a 3-1 series deficit to win the Stanley Cup was the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs – who rallied from 3-0 down against the Detroit Red Wings.
The Capitals, meanwhile, are on the brink of bringing Washington its first major sports title since the NFL’s Redskins won the 1992 Super Bowl.
