Around the NHL: Capitals Halfway to Reaching Final

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The road to the Stanley Cup Final is well underway with both conference final series through two games.

After two games in the Eastern Conference Final, the Washington Capitals have stormed out to a 2-0 series lead, putting them two wins away from reaching their first Stanley Cup Final since 1998.

In the Western Conference Final, the Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights split the first two games of the series in Winnipeg as the series heads to Las Vegas.

Here is more on the first two games in each series.

Eastern Conference Final

The Capitals dominated Game 1, getting a pair of first-period goals from Michael Kempny and Alex Ovechkin to open up a 2-0 lead. Jay Beagle and Lars Eller added goals in the second period to make it 4-0 through 40 minutes.

Tampa Bay managed to strike twice in the third, with Steven Stamkos and Ondrej Palat scoring the goals, but a rally ultimately fell short and the Capitals managed to grab Game 1 on the road.

In Game 2, Washington scored in the first minute of the game with Tom Wilson getting a deflection goal, but a pair of opportune goals by the Lightning on the power play gave them a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes.

The Capitals were hardly phased. Devante Smith-Pelly tied the game at 2:50 of the second period and in the closing moments of the second, two quick goals turned the game in Washington’s favor for good. Eller scored with 1:02 left in the period. Then Evgeny Kuznetsov scored a power-play goal with under three seconds remaining to make it a 4-2 Washington lead through two.

Ovechkin and Brett Connolly each scored in the third, putting the game away and giving the Capitals a 6-2 win in Game 2 to take a 2-0 series lead back to Washington. Game 3 is on Tuesday night.

Western Conference Final

Game 1 of this series was very much like the opener in the Eastern Conference Final. Winnipeg dominated the opening period, scoring three goals in short order to break the game open.

Dustin Byfuglien scored just 1:05 into the game. Patrik Laine added a power-play goal at 6:49. Joel Armia scored less than a minute later at 7:35.

Vegas got on the board with a goal by Brayden McNabb less than a minute after Armia’s tally, but the Jets restored the three-goal lead in the second with a goal by Mark Scheifele on the power play.

William Karlsson scored a power-play goal late in the second to cut the lead to two again, but Winnipeg shut down the Golden Knights from there to finish off the 4-2 win.

Game 2 was a much different story for Vegas. Two first-period goals paced the way for the Golden Knights to get ahead of the Jets and their raucous crowd.

Tomas Tatar scored the first goal of the game at 13:23 of the first. Jonathan Marchessault added a goal in the first as well to take a 2-0 lead to the intermission.

The 2-0 lead held into the third period, when Kyle Connor scored on the power play for the Jets to cut the lead to one. Just 88 seconds later, the two-goal lead was restored with Marchessault’s second goal of the game.

The series is now even, 1-1, and heads to Vegas for Game 3 on Wednesday night.