GAME FOUR RECAP (Penguins 5, Capitals 3)

It's a good thing there were only 48 hours between Games Three and Four. Just imagine how much complaining the Capitals would have felt compelled to do had there been a longer layover between games. If they weren't whining about the officiating, they were taking issue with a Yanni concert or expressing moral outrage at a television camera's shot of Ovechkin getting ready for the game. In retrospect, the 24 hour interval between last night's game and tonight's is a good thing, if only because it allows for only a single news cycle.
Among some pretty silly grievances, that last one is the best. A Versus television camera tries to get a pre-game image of Ovechkin gearing up for battle, and they get a whiteboard in the background. The Capitals have written their super top-secret plans into how to prevail in the art of war on this whiteboard. There are inscrutable Zen insights such as "We have got to get it deep and have a great forecheck," and "Have our legs and check our asses off." I am guessing they did not have sufficient room for "Score more goals than the other team." It is likely that the Penguins were not expecting this crafty strategy, and that some team official was assigned to monitoring the broadcast in search of nuggets just like this one. You can just imagine some sallow-skinned intern sitting in front of a bank of television screens, wiping his glasses and suddenly yelling out, "Jackpot! They're gonna try to win the special teams battle!"
More troubling, however, were their announced keys to Game Four. I suppose they accomplished all of those objectives.
At the post-game presser, Ovechkin maintained his innocence, and he's the only one who knows whether he stuck his knee out there with an intent to make Gonchar come up limping. It's fair to ask, at this point, whether the sport's code will be able to protect Ovechkin indefinitely.
It wasn't a great night for goaltending, but Fleury gave up fewer bad goals than Varlamov, and it made all the difference.
Meanwhile, the Penguins got going some of its previously-quiet supporting cast members. Miro Satan was signed last summer in the hope he could develop some chemistry with Sidney Crosby. It never happened, but his signing felt like it was totally worth it when he threaded a pass through Erskine's skates on a 2-on-1 to set Sid up for a tap-in that restored, temporarily, the Penguins' two-goal lead.
My guess is that Gonchar will be out for the game, and that Phillipe Boucher will get the call to replace him and step in paired with Brooks Orpik. That will pay off on the power play-- Boucher's almost as good as Gonchar at getting shots on net-- but it will hurt them defensively. And on the subject of defense, I'll be curious to see if Bruce Boudreau continues to match Ovechkin's line against the Scuderi-Gill blueline pairing. Scuderi made Ovechkin an afterthought for a second consecutive game, and if I've got the last change, I'd be thinking about trying my luck against another pairing, namely Letang and Eaton.
All other things being equal, I'd still rather be the Capitals at this point than the Penguins, given that the home team's held serve throughout and the law of averages suggests that Ovechkin's due for a breakout game. But it will be fun to watch it play out.