WASHINGTON – Tom Wilson did a little bit of everything for the Washington Capitals — and he wasn't sure the box score properly reflected quite just how much he contributed Thursday night.
He produced the primary assist on John Carlson's go-ahead goal on a power play early in the third period of Washington’s 3-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes to knot their Eastern Conference second-round playoff series at a game apiece.
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Wilson put the puck into an empty net in the final minute to seal the outcome. He provided his usual brand of physical play, hitting and shoving and mixing it up right up until the end. Oh, yes, and he was credited with two of Washington's 32 blocked shots, 22 more than Carolina, although Wilson was skeptical about his total.
“I only had two of them?” a smiling Wilson asked reporters with mock indignation. “The guys up top need to pay a little more attention.”
With Wilson leading the way physically and emotionally for the hosts, the Capitals managed to get going right away following a 2-1 overtime loss two nights earlier.
“He was leading the charge tonight, I thought,” coach Spencer Carbery said. “He was really engaged.”
No other forward spent as much time on the ice as Wilson did Thursday, and Carbery credited him with being one of the players — along with Alex Ovechkin — who wanted to make sure the club would be better prepared for Game 2 than for Game 1.
“Game 1 wasn’t good enough,” Wilson said. “We knew that.”
As teammate after teammate lavished praise on him before the series shifts to Raleigh for Game 3 on Saturday, Wilson sought to deflect the compliments.
“He does everything the right way," goalie Logan Thompson said. "We built off it. The whole stadium built off it.”
Connor McMichael, who scored the game's opening goal for Washington on a breakaway after a turnover by the Hurricanes, explained Wilson's role this way: “When we need a spark, he’s there to provide it. You need a big play or a big goal, he’s always the one doing it.”
Wilson kind of shrugged off a reporter's question about a head-first dive that thwarted a chance for Carolina's Jordan Staal, describing the play a bit before ending by saying simply: “You've just got to hope that the puck hits you.”
Wilson also said he didn't think he was “really doing anything more than everybody else on the team.”
Ovechkin's take on his long-time teammate?
“He set the tone. He’s our leader,” the top goal-scorer in NHL history said. “He plays smart. He plays physical.”
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl