D8 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022
Porzingis, along with a starting
lineup that would include former
champions Caldwell-Pope and
Kyle Kuzma? Have the Wizards’
last three first-round picks — Rui
Hachimura, Deni Avdija and
Corey Kispert — shown enough
progress for Beal to latch his
prime years to this core?
Hachimura sat out for months
in what should have been a
season — his third in the NBA —
for a young player to make a
significant leap. Avdija has
showed defensive promise as
well as a lack of defensive
awareness. (Note how many
times he lost track of
sharpshooter Bogdan
Bogdanovic during the team’s
loss in Atlanta on Wednesday.)
Kispert, a rookie, has made more
than 38 percent of his three-
pointers since the all-star break,
but he has also reflected many of
the team’s struggles on the
defensive end.
These were the players on the
court Friday night, and in that
one game, they provided the
template of the 2021-22 season.
The Wizards ripped off
10 straight points at the start,
forcing the scoreless New York
Knicks to call a timeout. By
halftime, that lead was long gone
after Washington allowed the
Knicks to shoot 63 percent in the
second quarter. Then by the third
quarter, you looked up and
somehow the Wizards were down
by 26.
It was the season in miniature:
a glimpse of promise, a costly
regression and a nagging feeling
that nothing much had been
accomplished or learned.
The Wizards lost their home
finale, but they didn’t leave their
fans hanging. Some lucky ones
even walked away with a virtual
assistant smart speaker. But with
the franchise in a giving mood,
there was one thing it never
provided: a reason to hope the
future might be better.— he had previously played for
the Capitals from 2010 to 2017 —
but he was still looking for a
breakthrough with his first goal
in his return to the franchise. It
came just 61 seconds into Satur-
day’s game. He chipped in an
unassisted goal to tie the game
just 16 seconds after Pittsburgh
had taken a 1-0 lead.
“It’s always nice to get that first
one. It’s always fun to be part of
scoring and all of that, but as long
as we’re winning, I couldn’t care
less,” Johansson said. “It’s fun to
get it. But more importantly, we
got the win.”cleaned up a rebound to tie the
game — and less than a minute
later, forward Brian Boyle beat
Samsonov to give the Penguins a
3-2 lead.
“The response to their goal by
our goal early was important. I
didn’t mind the game after that,”
Washington Coach Peter Lavio-
lette said. “Clearly there was a
couple things we could’ve done
better near the end of the first
period, so we ended up losing it.”
Samsonov was stellar early in
the second to keep the deficit at a
goal — “I thought [Samsonov]
was at his best the first two
minutes of the second,” Laviolette
said — and Washington earned a
five-on-three power play later in
the period after Pittsburgh’s Kris
Letang, Brian Dumoulin and
Carter all went to the penalty box.
Ovechkin made his rivals pay,
rifling a one-time slap shot from
the left circle to tie the game at 3.
Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry was the
158th goalie Ovechkin has scored
against in his career — he had
previously not found the net
against him in eight games — and
gave Ovechkin his 44th goal of
the season.
After breaking free for a two-
on-one, Wilson sniped a goal past
Jarry’s glove with 8:25 remain-
ing. Pittsburgh had one final
chance with a power play in the
final two minutes, but Evgeny
Kuznetsov added insurance with
an empty-net goal with 1:41 left,
and Martin Fehevary added an-
other in the final minute.third place in the Metropolitan
Division.
“On the road, often you have to
come together as a group to get it
done.... You’re playing in a loud
building. That kind of felt like a
playoff atmosphere. The rink was
loud. There was a lot of energy in
there,” Wilson said. “To come
together and play well is encour-
aging down the line because
come playoff time, it’s impor-
tant.”
Washington has won five
straight on the road and im-
proved to 22-7-5 as the visitor this
season, but it had to come from
behind to do so Saturday. After
giving up three goals in a wild
first period, goalie Ilya Samsonov
settled in the rest of the way, and
the Capitals overcame a 3-2 defi-
cit in the second period after Alex
Ovechkin tied the game with a
power-play goal.
The action started almost im-
mediately at PPG Paints Arena.
Penguins forward Bryan Rust
beat Samsonov to make 1-0 just
45 seconds in. Marcus Johansson
answered 16 seconds later to tie
the game — and Washington took
a 2-1 lead later in the period when
Dmitry Orlov scored on an 85-
mph slap shot from the left circle.
But the Penguins capitalized
on some shaky defense from the
Capitals near the end of the first
period. After Washington turned
the puck over in its own zone,
Penguins center Jeff Carter
CAPITALS FROM D1
Capitals strike late
in latest road win
his former team with a non-coro-
navirus illness. Laviolette contin-
ued to tinker with his lineups
with Sheary out. Garnet Hatha-
way, who had missed Wednes-
day’s win over the Tampa Bay
Lightning with an illness, re-
turned and played on the top line
Saturday. Rookie Connor McMi-
chael played as the third-line
center, while Lars Eller, a natural
center, again played on the left
wing on the fourth line.Welcome back, Johansson
Marcus Johansson had felt at
home for weeks after rejoining
Washington at the trade deadlinehis past five starts. Samsonov
responded with his 50th career
win, becoming just the 10th goal-
tender in franchise history to
reach that mark. After giving up
three first-period goals, he fin-
ished with 29 stops on 32 shots.
“[Samsonov] has so much nat-
ural skill and talent, but you
really love when you see a team-
mate grind,” Wilson said. “In the
second and third period, you just
saw him battling. He was really
comfortable back there.”Sheary sits out
Capitals forward Conor Sheary
missed Saturday’s game against“The environment was good
today. You could just tell going up
to the bench during the first
period that it had a playoff feel to
it,” Laviolette said. “Our guys
were ready.”
Here’s what else to know about
the Capitals’ win:Samsonov wins his 50th
Laviolette indicated this
month that he wanted one of his
two young goaltenders to emerge
as the top option ahead of the
playoffs, and Laviolette gave
Samsonov his second consecutive
start Saturday over Vitek Van-
ecek, who has won just once inKEITH SRAKOCIC/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Marcus Johansson picked up his first goal since his return to the Capitals just 61 seconds into the game.C APITALS’ NEXT THREEvs. Boston BruinsToday1:30 TNTvs. Philadelphia FlyersTuesday 7ESPNat Toronto Maple LeafsThursday 7NBCSWRadio: WJFK (106.7 FM)
or WTEM (980 AM)BY JIMMY GOLENboston — R yan Barrow and Mike
Benning scored less than three
minutes apart to give Denver the
lead, and the Pioneers awakened
with five goals in the third period
to rally past Minnesota State, 5-1,
on Saturday night for their record-
tying ninth college hockey title.
Two nights after eliminating
Michigan in the Frozen Four semi-
finals, Denver joined the Wolver-
ines as the only schools with nine
championships.
M agnus Chrona stopped
27 shots for the Pioneers (31-9-1),
who won it all for the first time
since 2017.
The Mavericks (38-6) took a 1-0
lead on Sam Morton’s first-period
goal and dominated — outshoot-
ing Denver 18-8 in the first 40 min-
utes — before Barrow slid a re-
bound of Benning’s shot through
the legs of Hobey Baker Award
winner Dryden McKay five min-utes into the third.
Forty seconds later, Morton was
sent off for tripping; he had just
returned to the ice and crossed
into the defensive zone when Ben-
ning one-timed it into the net to
give the Pioneers the lead. Massi-
mo Rizzo added another goal with
6:26 to play, and Brett Stapley and
Cameron Wright added empty-
netters 30 seconds apart in the
final 2^1 / 2 minutes.
McKay made 15 saves for Min-
nesota State, which led the nation
in wins.
— Associated PressNCAA MEN’S FROZEN FOUR FINAL
Pioneers equal record with ninth title
DENVER 5,
MINNESOTA STATE 1Wizards conclude the season
Sunday in Charlotte, most of
their regular starters will be in
street clothes, including
Porzingis and Beal, who will
make another franchise-altering
decision this summer.
This being the NBA, the
Wizards will repeat a mistake
they should have learned from
years ago after giving John Wall
his crippling supermax deal and
offer Beal a contract worth
roughly $245 million over five
years. It’s their plight: Either
commit over a third of their
salary to just one star player, only
to remain a middle-of-the-pack
team year after year, or risk
losing him and start the
rebuilding process in earnest.
If you’re Beal, are you
intrigued by a pairing withthe foundation of the defense
cracked, Washington also
struggled to find any chemistry.
The starting backcourt, Beal and
Dinwiddie, appeared less and
less of a sustainable solution.
Then by January, Montrezl
Harrell and Kentavious Caldwell-
Pope, teammates who arrived
from Los Angeles after the
franchise-altering trade of
Russell Westbrook, bickered
while walking off the floor during
a game and needed to be
separated.
Before the February trade
deadline, with Beal permanently
sitting, the team sent Harrell to
Charlotte and Dinwiddie to
Dallas. Highlighting their haul,
the Wizards brought in the
always-intriguing Kristaps
Porzingis. However, when thereasons to worry even before
Beal’s injured wrist offered an
easy excuse for the team’s demise.
Proving how fragile its early
success had been, the team did
not respond well to the first
evidence of adversity. In
December, the Wizards tumbled
to 26th overall in defensive
rating after they had been among
the top 12 during their sizzling
start to the season. They will end
the season among the bottom six
teams of the league, and surely
becoming a good defensive team
does not happen overnight.
“It can take a while, obviously,
but there are a lot of things in
play,” Unseld said Friday,
mentioning the midstream
defensive changes he had to
make when the team changed.
Even so, around the time whenthe future, so how could there be
reasonable expectations that
next year will be better than this
one?
When this fun and feisty team
started 10-3 and forced us to sit
up and pay attention, I begged
forgiveness for my preseason
prognostication. But who knew
the Wizards would peak in
November and “meh” would be
their ceiling?
The season went fully off the
rails in early February when Beal,
28, opted to have season-ending
surgery to repair a torn ligament
in his left wrist. When he first
started to miss games because of
the injury, the Wizards were 23-- They have won only a dozen
games since, with only Sunday’s
season finale in Charlotte
remaining. However, there were
On Fan
Appreciation
Night during the
last home game of
the 2021-2022
season, the
Washington
Wizards were in a
giving mood.
Pretty much anything that was
not nailed down — a Thomas
Bryant bobblehead, tons of free
T-shirts, the lead guard spot in
the starting lineup — the Wizards
decided to give away. The lucky
and loyal fans, who showed up on
a Friday night when there surely
must have been better things to
do than bid adieu to a lottery
team, reaped a bonanza of
freebies.
A row of fans sitting in the
upper deck won Bluetooth
speakers. On the court, a young
man shot basketballs into large
bins placed at various distances
and picked up a 55-inch
television when he hit the
farthest target. A random duo
who danced long enough for the
camera to spot them took a spin
of the “prize wheel” and earned a
pair of Beats headphones. The
night felt like the first Christmas
inside the home of a divorced
parent trying to buy a child’s
love. The Wizards gave away so
much — everything except a clear
vision for next season.
Forget the excuses about
lineup disruption, chemistry
issues brought on by the massive
trade-deadline makeover and
Bradley Beal’s season-ending
injury. The Wizards took a step
back this year.
They will not finish within the
top 10 of the Eastern Conference,
unlike a year ago when they at
least earned a participation
reward for making the play-in
tournament. They will finish as a
worse defensive team than the
2020-21 Wizards, although last
offseason they hired a defensive-
minded coach in Wes Unseld Jr.
expressly to correct those bad
habits. And they have returned to
the same spot they were in 2019:
searching for a starting point
guard after cutting loose the one,
Spencer Dinwiddie, they thought
they had found during last
summer’s free agency.
Many question marks cloud
All that was missing at the Wizards’ home finale was a clear vision for the future
Candace
Buckner
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
As always, the offseason focus for Washington will center on the status of star guard Bradley Beal and his future with the franchise.WIZARDS’ LAST ONEat Charlotte HornetsToday3:30 NBCSWRadio: WTEM (980 AM)
or WDCH (99.1 FM)Capitals 6, Penguins 3
WASHINGTON ......................... 2 13 —6
PITTSBURGH ........................... 3 00 —3
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1 , Pittsburgh, Rust 24 (Malkin, Guentzel), 0:45.
2, Washington, Johansson 7, 1:01. 3, Washington, Orlov
11 (Larsson, Dowd), 7:24. 4, Pittsburgh, Carter 17
(Rodrigues), 18:34. 5, Pittsburgh, Boyle 10 (Blueger,
Letang), 19:34.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 6 , Washington, Ovechkin 44 (Carlson, Back-
strom), 4:49 (pp).
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 7 , Washington, Wilson 22, 11:35. 8, Washing-
ton, Kuznetsov 23, 18:19 (en). 9, Washington, Fehervary
7 (Carlson, Wilson), 19:33 (en).
SHOTS ON GOAL
WASHINGTON ....................... 10161 9— 45
PITTSBURGH ......................... 14117 —32
Power-play opportunities: Washington 1 of 4; Pitts-
burgh 0 of 3. Goalies: Washington, Samsonov 21-9-4 (32
shots-29 saves). Pittsburgh, Jarry 33-18-6 (43-39). A:
18,404 (18,387). T: 2 :43.S0136-3x3.25“Artsy vibe”
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