Systems Analyst: Who's to blame for the Capitals' buzzer-beating game winner?

Someone has to take the fall. You don’t have a neutral zone faceoff with 12 seconds left in the third period of a tied playoff game, lose in regulation, and have everyone put their shoulders to their ears and say, “They made a nice play.”

Here’s how the Capitals’ last-second game winner was able to happen.

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Give 'er another gander, if you like. 

Faceoffs aren’t important until they are - I believe it was the Dalai Lama who first spoke that timeless truth.

This one ended up mattering. The Capitals won the neutral zone draw, and headed up ice.

Still, as a general rule, the 10 seconds following the image below rarely involve a goal being scored. 

OK, fine, it happens sometimes when Alex Ovechkin has the puck, but still - not very often.

Dan Boyle and Ryan McDonagh successfully disrupt the rush, and the puck is on the top-pair defender McDonagh’s stick blade, ready to be flipped out of the zone and take the Rangers to OT where they’ll have a chance to score and win the game and what could possibly go wrong?

Whoops. He mishandles the puck, and it slides back to the Rangers’ corner.

NOW.

NOW things go off the rails for the Rangers.

First off, when McDonagh lost the puck to the corner and Boyle went to retrieve it, they should have talked, but McDonagh needs to see Boyle coming to his side, and switch to the front of the net.

You don’t want two D-men in one corner if it’s avoidable, and the Rangers center, Derek Stepan, is well back defensively and ready to play his role in the 2-on-2 in the corner. So that’s McDonagh’s second demerit in a little over two seconds.

As for Boyle, this morning I heard his decision-making get killed on TV (“This is something we teach pee wees!”). The analyst was suggesting Boyle slide the puck to J.T. Miller behind the net, and break it out the other side.

I strongly disagree.

In the image used for the analysis …

… that looks like a fine play. But you can see Boyle shoulder-checking to the left in that picture, and here’s what he sees at a glance (excuse the shoddy quality, it’s a picture of my TV).

Man, that image isn’t even Zapruder quality. Again, my bad.

Joel Ward is pressing down hard on Miller (note his location in the pic below), reading, hoping to create a turnover. Boyle’s worst-case scenario is the bump pass behind the net goes awry, Ward snags it and stuffs it. A hard wrap could be fine, and probably would be, but it’s uncertain. Maybe a Capital grabs it and gets a blast off.

His best bet? Just tie it up in the corner for a few more seconds, keep it on the paint, run the clock out and reset.

So, he eats it, Ward curls up to be F3, and Boyle gets himself against the boards and braces for the impact. You can second-guess these things for days, but I think it’s the right thing to do, if not at least one of the better options … if it’s done right.

(Take whatever stance you like on the hit by Nicklas Backstrom - I think it’s probably a penalty, but given the situation can see it going uncalled - but we’re not here to debate that. Moving on.)

Boyle protects the puck, but makes himself vulnerable by going numbers-out and getting so low. It’s good he’s against the boards, but he seems to be using the “My numbers are a force field” strategy. Backstrom drills his upper back/brain into the boards, hurts him, and the Rangers D-man goes down.

When Boyle goes back to take that hit - something that happens all the time - he’s not planning on taking something so rough it causes an injury. The odds of that happening are miniscule, and certainly don’t condemn the decision to eat the puck in the first place.

Our next problem is that McDonagh, who’s decided to stay in the corner battle, isn’t even doing that right: he’s the closest guy to the pile. In a 2-on-2 corner battle, he should be playing soft - as in, he should be on the defensive side of Ovechkin - so if the puck does pop out, Ovi still has to go through him.

But no …

… McDonagh is in there fishing for the puck, like if he gets it, he’s going to lead a breakout up ice.

As Boyle falls, the puck squirts out low, and now Ovi, who’s been circling the outside the pile, finds it. Now we’re here.

Most NHL teams defend in layers, meaning when coverage breaks down as it did with McDonagh, another (p)layer steps up to stop the offensive skater from getting to the net.

Stepan, the center playing in front of the net with the two defenders in the corner, has to make a read: is McDonagh going to be able to recover, or does he need to provide the next layer?

If he chooses to collapse on Ovi, which he does almost immediately, that means the right winger on the weak side - who should be hovering low in the slot (particularly given the game state, he should basically be another D-man in front) - would take over for him. That’s Miller, who’s, well, not there.

In fairness, Ward isn’t exactly parked in front (he’s coming from the strong side), so I wouldn’t assign too much of the blame to Miller here.

Then, it’s just a matter of a skilled player making an extremely skilled play.

Look how far forward Ovi is pushing the puck in the above image, knowing he has to get the pass by Stepan’s skates for the play to even matter. And look where Ward is in his sight line - not at all - meaning Ovechkin would have to remember where he was moments earlier, and guess where he’d be going.

From there, seeing Ovi’s path, Henrik Lundqvist has to be thinking about switching to look over his right shoulder, and his momentum is certainly pulling him that way. As the puck comes back to the short side, he appears to have made the correct read. He’s still there, and he managed to cover everything low ... save for a space not much bigger than a puck.

It happens so quick - bang bang, as they say - he doesn’t ever have time to do much else.

In sum: I don’t dislike Boyle’s decision to eat that puck. Pretty much everything that could go wrong in order for that play to cost the Rangers did. Ryan McDonagh didn’t have his greatest 10 seconds. And sometimes, talented players do talented things.

1-0 Caps. This is going to be one fun, low-scoring series.