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Facing elimination at home Billy Price Jersey , the Washington Capitals looked determined to hit everything that moved in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final.

The goal was to finish checks on Tampa Bay Lightning players as much as possible, though at one point Devante Smith-Pelly decked Dan Girardi and took teammate Jay Beagle down with him.

”I apologized to him,” Smith-Pelly said. ”I said sorry. He didn’t seem to care.”

Sorry, not sorry.

The Capitals made no apologies for taking the body and grinding out a physical 3-0 victory Monday night that tied the playoff series and set up a deciding Game 7. T.J. Oshie had a goal on the power play and into an empty net, Smith-Pelly scored a back-breaker and Braden Holtby stopped all 24 shots, but it was the bruising style that kept the Capitals alive and could still pay more dividends.

”You’ve got to wear them down,” Smith-Pelly said. ”Every game, if guys are going to be playing 25, 30 minutes, it’s tough when you’re getting hit every single shift. We’ve been on the body all game and all series. If it shows up in Game 7 where guys are starting to get tired, then it was all worth it.”

Game 7 is Wednesday night at Tampa Bay. The winner faces the Vegas Golden Knights, who are in the Stanley Cup Final in their first season.

Alex Ovechkin Cheap M.J. Stewart Jersey , Tom Wilson and Brooks Orpik led the charge in the grueling Game 6, throwing their bodies around all night like human wrecking balls. Orpik separated Cedric Paquette from the puck twice on one shift, Ovechkin leveled rookie Yanni Gourde and Wilson was his usual self, dishing out a handful of crushing body checks.

The Capitals outhit the Lightning 39-19 and outshot them 34-24, bruising and battering them all over the ice.

”It’s desperation, really,” Orpik said. ”You try to empty the tank as much as you can. That’s probably one area where we have an edge is the size and physical play.”

That edge was noticeable in Game 6 when Washington fired up an already-raucous crowd well before Oshie’s power-play goal 15:12 into the second period. While Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was again on top of his game in stopping 31 of 33 shots, Orpik said the Capitals wanted to give back to fans for their energy and did so by laying out Lightning players.

From Wilson’s big hit on Paquette on his first shift through the time Smith-Pelly scored with 9:58 left, the physical play took a toll on the Lightning, who didn’t have the energy left to muster a late comeback. Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos said simply the Capitals ”executed their game plan” and the Lightning didn’t respond.

”They played with that desperate hockey and we should have matched it and we didn’t,” winger Ryan Callahan said. ”They played like their lives were on the line, and we played like we had another chance and that’s unfortunate Tremaine Youth Edmunds Youth Jersey , but we’ve got to change the script now in Game 7.”

Tampa Bay had no answer for the physicality with a hit disparity coach Jon Cooper chalked up as, ”Somebody was engaged and somebody wasn’t.” The Lightning also couldn’t solve Holtby, who was at his best on a handful of deflection attempts to record his first shutout of these playoffs.

”I was just trying to stay in the moment, focus on one puck at a time,” Holtby said. ”I try and stay the same level through the game.”

The Lightning missed a chance to close out an opponent for the first time in these playoffs. They eliminated New Jersey and Boston in five games apiece but are now on the brink themselves.

The Capitals improved to 10-2 in the Ovechkin/Nicklas Backstrom era when facing elimination any time before Game 7. They’re 3-7 in Game 7 over that time but will obviously take their chances after grinding their way back to 3-3 in the series.

”I think it’s great that we’re close,” Oshie said. ”I think both teams for the most part figured out what works against the other team. It’s just a matter of who’s going to play longer, harder and do more of it.”

NOTES: Washington improved to 4-5 at home in the playoffs. The Lightning dropped to 5-2 on the road. … An assist on Oshie’s first goal extended Capitals C Evgeny Kuznetsov’s point streak to nine games, tied with Backstrom in 2009 for the longest in franchise playoff history. … F Andre Burakovsky returned to the Capitals lineup after being a healthy scratch for Game 5, replacing Alex Chiasson.

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Freed from the weight of the world of being Stanley Cup favorites, the Washington Capitals are playing like a team eager to prove something.

Prove doubters wrong, prove their championship window hasn’t closed and, most notably Rashaan Evans Titans Jersey , prove they can get over the playoff hump that has vexed them over the past decade. Led by top NHL goal scorer Alex Ovechkin, the Capitals go into their first-round series against the Columbus Blue Jackets having won 12 of their final 15 games and feeling confident about this spring despite a series of early playoff exits.

”I hope best hockey is going to be in the playoffs,” Ovechkin said Saturday night. ”I think the balance on our team right now is pretty good and pretty high. That’s very good thing to go into the playoffs because in playoffs you never know what’s going to happen. Maybe one shift can change the whole series. I think we’re ready for it.”

Few expected the Capitals to win the Metropolitan Division again after losing Justin Williams, Marcus Johansson, Nate Schmidt, Karl Alzner, Kevin Shattenkirk and Daniel Winnik from last year’s team that won the Presidents’ Trophy for the second consecutive season. Coach Barry Trotz and players miss no opportunity to bring up all the preseason predictions about them being a playoff bubble team.

Of course, when they sat at 11-10-1 just before Thanksgiving, those lower expectations looked accurate. General manager Brian MacLellan insists he was never worried – and his team’s 38-16-6 record the rest of the way was the fourth best in the NHL in that time behind only Boston, Nashville and Winnipeg.

The Capitals don’t have the playoff buzz of the Bruins, Predators, Jets Marcedes Lewis Packers Jersey , Tampa Bay Lightning or the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, but they have as good a chance as anyone of reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in the Ovechkin era.

”We have a chance to go the distance,” MacLellan said. ”I don’t know that we’re as deep or as experienced as we were last year, but I think the whole league is a little less of that. There’s probably a couple teams that are a little deeper that might have a chance, theoretically, of going farther, but I think we’re in the mix with the high-end teams.”

Everyone thought the Capitals were the highest of high-end teams in 2016 and 2017, and they lost to the eventual Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round each time. Williams has implied that favorite status didn’t suit the Capitals well, and Trotz said ”the crown is quite heavy” for a team expected to win.

It showed.

”I think there was some external pressure that creeped in the room,” veteran defenseman Brooks Orpik said. ”I think maybe as a veteran group, we probably don’t want to admit that it affected us. I think at times it definitely did.”

Finishing in first place puts some pressure on the Capitals, but it’s nothing like in years past. More than anything Cheap Isaiah Wynn Jersey , there’s urgency to win with Ovechkin 32 and having three years remaining on his contract.

”We all know what we’re playing for is to win a championship and I’m hoping we do it this year,” owner Ted Leonsis said. ”I’m hoping we do it within his contract time.”

Columbus is a tough first-round matchup for the Capitals, but their play down the stretch makes a long playoff run possible if they get strong goaltending from Braden Holtby or Philipp Grubauer. From the net out, Washington looks like a contender thanks to the trade-deadline additions of defensemen Michal Kempny and Jakub Jerabek and the play of centers Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom.

”We’re playing the right way a lot of the time,” Holtby said. ”It’s more where you’re at as a team and I think we’re continuing to build and push forward in the right direction. We have a lot of guys contributing right now. It’s a good sign.”

Washington’s road to the elusive Cup could go through Pittsburgh and then Boston, Tampa Bay or Toronto. Perhaps the expectations being on those teams instead of the Capitals isn’t such a bad thing.

”I think it’s a good thing because I think last two years we were on top of the league and we win Presidents’ Trophy,” Ovechkin said. ”Everybody thought we were going to be unstoppable in playoffs and we didn’t. … We’re going to do our thing and we’re going to have success.”

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