Alex Ovechkin did everything he could to keep the Washington Capitals’ season alive.
Ovechkin threw his body around, skated around and through Pittsburgh’s defense, and scored a power-play goal to help the Capitals beat the visiting Penguins, 3-1, in Game 5 on Saturday night.
Behind a 2-point game from Ovechkin and 30 saves by Braden Holtby, Washington cut its deficit to 3-2 and forced Game 6 on Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.
T.J. Oshie also scored on the power play and Justin Williams at even strength, cracking Matt Murray after the goaltender looked superhuman for most of the series.
Murray allowed three goals on 19 shots and was victimized on a brutal turnover by defenseman Brian Dumoulin that led to Williams’s goal. Meanwhile, Holtby was stellar and at his best when he stopped three in a less than minute on Evgeni Malkin, Patric Hornqvist, and Justin Schultz.
That succession of saves by body, pads, and glove late in the second period drew a standing ovation and chants of ‘‘Holtby! Holtby!’’ from the sellout crowd at Verizon Center hoping it wasn’t seeing its final game of the season.
Penguins star Sidney Crosby had an extra gear to his game, too, but Ovechkin was even better with the Capitals on the brink of yet another early playoff exit. From the drop of the puck, Washington’s captain was a force all over the ice.
Ovechkin scored 4:04 in, eight seconds into the first power play of the night, to give the Capitals the kind of strong start the Penguins anticipated given the situation. After Chris Kunitz scored the Penguins’ first power-play goal of the series three minutes later and the momentum shifted, Ovechkin was at the center of the Capitals seizing it back. It was Ovechkin’s shot off Murray’s right pad that set up Oshie for his rebound goal four minutes into the second period.
After no power-play goals in the past two games and a 1-for-12 showing in the series, the Capitals’ unit that ranked fifth in the NHL during the regular season woke up just like coach Barry Trotz wanted.
‘‘You've got to find the back of the net, be it Ovi or Osh or someone,’’ Trotz said Saturday morning. ‘‘They've got to do that. They've got to get a little more traffic, as they always do when you’re not getting the goals that you want. You've got to go to the hard areas.’’
Trotz also wanted better 5-on-5 production up and down his lineup and got that boost from Williams 9:58 into the second period. When Dumoulin threw the puck into the middle of the ice, it landed on the tape of Williams’ stick, and the 33-year-old awoke from his postseason slumber to beat Murray five-hole for his second goal of the series.
The Capitals signed Williams for these situations, and he made up for committing his team-leading seventh penalty of the playoffs. His goal squirted through the legs of Murray, who had stopped 104 of the past 109 shots he faced.
Blues 4, Stars 1 — Brian Elliott didn’t let this third-period lead get away, and St. Louis is going home with a chance to close out a second-round series against Dallas.
Elliott turned away a strong push from the Stars in the final period, rookie playoff points leader Robby Fabbri had a goal and assist, and the Blues beat the Stars for a 3-2 series lead.
Dmitrij Jaskin’s first career playoff goal in his first postseason game this year put the Blues ahead for good at 2-1 in the second period, and St. Louis protected a 3-1 lead in the third for a second straight road victory in the series.
The Blues surrendered the same lead before winning in overtime in Game 2 in Dallas. Elliott was perfect in the third period this time, getting 12 of his 27 saves to send the Blues home with the series edge.
‘‘I know we've done well on the road, but we've set ourselves up well to go home and win a game,’’ Elliott said after his seventh win of these playoffs and 13th overall. ‘‘If we can do more of the same, I think we'll be on the right side of things after Game 6.’’
Troy Brouwer scored his fourth goal of the playoffs in a rare early start (noon) just 38 hours after the Stars won in overtime in St. Louis to even the series.
There were quite a few empty seats at the start of such a pivotal game, but the pace was brisk early before the Blues established themselves in another physical game with frequent scuffles after whistles in a matchup of the top two Western Conference teams.
‘‘It felt like we were going out for a pregame skate and then all of a sudden you’re playing,’’ Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said.
‘‘And then it’s going 100 miles an hour and you’re trying to keep up. It’s hard to be alert that early in the day physically from a body contact standpoint.’’
The game was stopped early in the third period because of blood on the ice in front of the Dallas bench, and yet there wasn’t a penalty until a few seconds after that when St. Louis’s David Backes was sent off for holding.
The Blues killed that penalty and one more later in the third, putting Dallas at 1 of 16 with the man advantage in the series.
The Stars created plenty of chances at even strength as well, but they couldn’t get one past Elliott. That included Cody Eakin, who was stuffed while alone just in front of Elliott after scoring the overtime winner on the road two days earlier.
‘‘We hit some posts, we hit a crossbar, we missed a couple point blank,’’ Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. ‘‘When you get chances to execute and turn the game, it’s your chance to put the game in your favor and we didn't.’’
Jaskin’s go-ahead goal came after a long sequence in Dallas’s defensive end. Kari Lehtonen, who had 18 saves on 21 shots, stopped a backhander with his pad, but Jaskin got his own rebound and put it in over a sprawling Lehtonen midway through the second period.
Fabbri, who has four multipoint games in the playoffs, started the sequence to Brouwer’s goal for a 3-1 lead with a cross-ice pass to Paul Stastny, who had an empty-net goal and an assist. Stastny’s shot was deflected to Brouwer, who almost missed the puck but got enough to send it into an open net.
‘‘It’s like he’s on the beach and there’s the ocean,’’ Hitchcock said. ‘‘It’s just got to go in. You just can’t miss it from that much sand, you know?’’
St. Louis went up, 1-0, when Fabbri sent what appeared to be a pass through the slot that ricocheted off Dallas forward Brett Ritchie’s skate past Lehtonen. The Stars got even about five minutes later when Alex Goligoski had a shot into an open net on assists from Vernon Fiddler and Jason Spezza. It was Goligoski’s fourth goal of the playoffs after he had five in the regular season.
