Backstrom have spent their entire careers chasing the Pittsburgh Penguins and shouldering their own franchise’s onerous history of playoff failures.One brilliant end-to-end rush gave the two Washington Capitals teammates and their resilient club something they’ve rarely enjoyed against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions: momentum.Ovechkin knocked his own rebound out of midair and by Matt Murray with 1:07 remaining to lift the Capitals to a 4-3 victory on Tuesday night in Game 3 of their increasingly testy Eastern Conference semifinal series with Pittsburgh.Ovechkin’s initial shot smacked off the far post.The Russian star http://www.officiallightningprostore.com/authentic-adidas-anton-stralman-jersey , however, stayed with the play and with Murray out of position, he deftly flicked it into the open net to give the Capitals a 2-1 series lead.”It’s a good thing I didn’t raise my arms up (after the first shot), you know to (celebrate) the play,” Ovechkin said after scoring his eighth goal of the playoffs. ”Got lucky.”Matt Niskanen, John Carlson and Chandler Stephenson also scored for Washington, which improved to 4-0 on the road in the postseason. Braden Holtby finished with 19 saves. Backstrom had three assists, including the helper on Ovechkin’s winner.”It’s huge, huge goal,” Ovechkin said. ”Obviously for our team, you know we want to win tonight and we did. It doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter who scored. We sacrifice. We play hard. And we have to do the same moving forward.”Game 4 is in Pittsburgh on Thursday night.Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh. Sidney Crosby and Patric Hornqvist also scored Womens Brayden Point Jersey , but the Penguins lost consecutive playoff games for only the fourth time since the start of their run to consecutive Stanley Cups began in 2016.Pittsburgh also lost forward Zach Aston-Reese to a broken jaw and a concussion following a violent collision with Washington’s Tom Wilson at the game’s midway point.Aston-Reese was stickhandling near the Washington bench when Wilson slammed into him, sending the 6-foot-4 Aston-Reese to the ice.Wilson was not penalized on the play, the second time in as many games he was not disciplined for a borderline hit.Pittsburgh defenseman Brian Dumoulin went into the league’s concussion protocol after Wilson blindsided him in Game 2 while Dumoulin was bracing for a collision with Ovechkin.The NHL’s Department of Player safety didn’t ask Wilson to explain himself during a hearing and Dumoulin was back in the lineup to start Game 3.Both teams stressed the need to move forward with so much at stake. But that was before Aston-Reese slowly made his way off the ice, flinging one of his gloves at the Washington bench in frustration, his jaw mangled and his status for the rest of the postseason uncertain.The initial point of contact was hard to discern, even on replay. Was it the shoulders? The head? Either way the tenor changed considerably.Asked afterward about the hit, Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan replied ”at some point we hope the league might do something.”Maybe not. Officials conferred for several minutes before deciding to take no action against Wilson.”They all got together and they said, `You know what, we’ve got a good, clean check here,”’ NHL on-site supervisor Paul Devorski said through a pool reporter.Stephenson tied the game shortly after the sequence and a crescendo of pushing, shoving and jawing followed.Crosby put the Penguins back in front with 3:33 left in the second when he took a pretty pass from Guentzel – who occupied three Capitals before sliding the puck to his teammate – and buried it into an open net.Niskanen Braydon Coburn Jersey , who spent four seasons in Pittsburgh before signing with Washington in the summer of 2014, blasted a one-timer by Murray 5:06 into the third to set up the finish.Ovechkin and Backstrom’s two-on-one gave the Capitals the series lead over Washington for the first time since they won Game 1 of the 2016 Eastern Conference semifinal.Of course, the Capitals lost that series. As they almost always do when the Penguins are on the other side of the ice.The champions have proven to be an impossible out during their current reign. Three tight games in, Washington is well aware there’s little margin for error.”It’s a funny game,” Niskanen said. ”Boy, sometimes the puck takes a different bounce and the score can be completely different.”NOTES: Penguins C Evgeni Malkin played 19:07 and assisted on Hornqvist’s goal in his return after missing three games with a lower-body injury. … The Penguins hosted Humboldt Broncos junior hockey player Brayden Camrud , a survivor of the bus crash that killed 16 people – many of them teammates – last month. … Pittsburgh F Carl Hagelin skated with his teammates for a second straight day, but remained out of the lineup. Hagelin is dealing with an upper-body injury and has worn a full face shield while on the ice. … Both teams went 1 for 4 on the power play. … Guentzel has recorded a point in seven straight playoff games.— Barry Trotz didn’t scan the rafters for the banner.Back in Washington, he never once looked up for the championship flag hanging high above the home ice of the Capitals. Yet when he turned around for the national anthem, Trotz said he saw the big white letters standing out on the red banner: “STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS 2018” around the Capitals logo.When the anthem was over, he turned back to the visitors’ bench and got back to work on trying to earn some more banners to hang — in New York.After delivering the Capitals’ first championship in franchise history, Trotz is well on his way to changing the culture in his first season as Islanders coach and bringing that proud organization back to prominence. By implementing the same discipline off the ice and structure on the ice he did in Washington J.T. Miller Jersey , Trotz has the Islanders in first place in their division past the halfway mark of the NHL season for just the second time in the past 28 years.“It feels very similar to the first year (in Washington),” Trotz said. “We were building something. We started with the structure and trying to make every moment count, the accountability, how we play, professionalism — all those things that make a pro athlete on and off the ice. We try to involve that with our organization as we did here. They’ve carried it on to the Stanley Cup, and we’re in the infancy stages.”Modest to a fault and not eager to accept praise, Trotz considers the Islanders a “work in progress.” But a lot of things are working:They have won five in a row and 12 of 14. Their goalies lead the league with a .920 save percentage after ranking 28th last season. They have allowed the fewest goals a game in the league after being the worst in that category last season.All this after point-a-game center John Tavares left in free agency to sign with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs. The Islanders were expected to struggle, to say the least.Instead, they’ve thrived.“I think a lot of guys took it as a little bit of an insult when we were starting to get ranked to be the worst team in the league after he left,” fourth-line winger Matt Martin said. “(Trotz) gets the best out of everybody. … He gives everybody the role and responsibilities, everyone’s playing similar minutes every night, getting a real good opportunity to play. As a player Womens Charlie McAvoy Jersey , when you’re getting those opportunities and you feel emotionally invested, you feel involved.”It could take a while for the Islanders to become a perennial Cup contender like they were four decades ago. But the building blocks are being put in place under first-year general manager Lou Lamoriello and Trotz’s staff that includes longtime goaltending guru Mitch Korn.Trotz’s former players aren’t the least bit surprised at the early success.“If you ask him, I’m sure he’s not surprised either,” Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom said. “I actually think they’ve got really good players there. But he’s got that tendency to bring in a good system and to make sure you focus on the right things and he’s always pushing guys to get better.”Reigning Calder Trophy winner Mathew Barzal is on almost a point-a-game pace in his second season, captain Anders Lee is on the way to a 30-goal season, and Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss are stopping the puck at some of the best rates of their careers. Lee said he believes one of the Islanders’ strengths is how someone different seems to step up every night, a result of Trotz balancing ice time and making them feel like a cohesive unit.“He does a wonderful job of rolling with guys that are feeling it or lines that are doing well that night and giving them matchups and getting everyone involved,” Lee said. “He has a really good sense of how the game is going, the flow of it, and he can make those quick decisions in-game that makes him so effective.”Lamoriello knew what he was getting in Trotz, who’s fourth all-time in NHL coaching wins and had an impressive resume from Nashville and Washington even before winning the Cup. The Islanders lucked out in getting Trotz, who left the Capitals in a contract dispute in June days after the championship.“There’s no question that Barry Trotz is one of the elite coaches over the past X number of years in the National Hockey League Authentic Louis Domingue Jersey ,” Lamoriello said. “He came with a group that had a very sort of down year for a lot of different reasons last year. We added some unique people as far as what they bring as far as character as well as abilities. I think that everybody just has made a total commitment from ownership through management that we were going to do everything that was necessary to have success, and either people were going to be on board or they weren’t going to be.”Defenseman Brooks Orpik said it took some time a few years ago for the Capitals to understand why Trotz wanted some things, including the same set of rules for every player. The respect Trotz earned from Alex Ovechkin on down is growing with the Islanders.“He’s been awesome,” winger Josh Bailey said. “As a group, you’ve got to be able to trust your leadership, which is our staff and Barry’s the head of that for sure.”After Trotz got his Cup ring earlier this season and before he coached his first game back in Washington, he told Islanders players he wants to have the same championship experience with them.“It’s a day-to-day process,” Trotz said. “You hear coaches use that, stay with the process. Just stay and keep growing as a team. And we don’t know where we’re going to end up.”