The New York Islanders weren’t able to finish off the Washington Capitals yesterday, losing 3-2 in Game 4.
In my opinion, this was the first game of the series that Washington deserved to win. The Islanders controlled the play through much of the first period, even if a large reason for that was due to their power play chances, but couldn’t get much going after that. New York got outshot 13-4 at 5-on-5 in the last two periods and 20-13 in the last two periods altogether (according to NaturalStatTrick.com).
I said this after Game 3 as well, but the Islanders need to be able to convert on power play chances. For the second game in a row, they went 0-for-5 and it may have changed the game if they were able to convert. They were getting good chances but at a certain point, if you’re not scoring, it doesn’t matter how good those chances are.
This was the first game of the series where Semyon Varlamov was actually tested quite a bit and I think, for the most part, he played pretty well. On the first goal, Adam Pelech got uncharacteristically beat easily down the wing by Evgeny Kuznetsov and then on the second goal, Scott Mayfield tried to block the shot but just ended up screening Varlamov. I’ve said this before, but players need to either get in the way of the shot or get out of the way altogether, because that’s one that Varlamov could’ve had if he saw it. On the third goal, Pelech got caught once again and if Alex Ovechkin is given that much time and space, it’s probably not going to go well. Varlamov shouldn't take blame for the loss.
I’m still confident in the Islanders taking this series, but it does hurt to give up a lead like that. The Islanders weren’t able to contain Washington’s offense like they did in the first three games and that was the major reason that they couldn’t end the series.
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