The Washington Capitals have beaten the New York Rangers by a score of 2-1 after Joel Ward beat Henrik Lundqvist on a blatant missed boarding call by the referee with 1 second left at Madison Square Garden in Game 1.
The break must not have done the Rangers good as they came out flat in the first and had a lot of shots but did not get enough to beat Braden Holtby. 18:13 into the first Alex Ovechkin fired a laser through the legs of Dan Boyle, and past Henrik Lundqvist to put the Caps up 1-0, it was a power play goal. After that goal Alex Ovechkin skated past Henrik Lundqvist saying “All series, baby. All series” The Caps would keep the lead, even when the Rangers made pushes. Neither team scored in the 2nd but a Kevin Hayes shot with 4:39 left would be tipped in by Jesper Fast to tie the game. The game looked destined for OT when with 1 second left Nicholas Backstrom hit Dan Boyle, who was shaken up on the play from behind, freeing up the puck and allowing Joel Ward to get free with the puck and beat Henrik Lundqvist to win the game.
After the game Rangers defenseman, Dan Girardi said, "It almost feels like we lost in overtime. We had no chance to comeback. No rebuttal." Henrik Lundqvist said they were concentrating on Dan Boyle rather than the game, in a way, "It's a tough one, it really stinks. You take a few minutes to regroup here. Obviously the last few seconds there. I feel like we all just kind of stopped when Boyle went down. We lost our focus a little bit and gave up the last chance. It's a tough one."
As a result of an Eric Clapton concert at the Garden on Friday and Saturday night, Game 2 is an afternoon game, at 12:30 pm on Saturday where the Rangers look to tie up the series and the Caps look to go back to Washington up 2-0.