RALEIGH, N.C. — In a Hurricanes-Capitals series that’s delivered a handful of double-take moments, perhaps the biggest so far came in Carolina’s 5-2 win over Washington in Game 4 at Lenovo Center on Monday.

Early in the second period, with Carolina nursing a newly acquired two-goal lead, Washington entered the Canes’ zone with numbers. Tom Wilson spun across the blue line, located Alexander Ovechkin at the top of the left circle and slid the puck to the NHL’s all-time regular-season goal-scoring leader.

Ovechkin then … passed?

The Great 8, from as close to his “office” as he’d been all game to that point, didn’t pull the trigger, electing instead to move the puck across to Dylan Strome in the right circle. Strome one-timed the puck at the cage, and Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen made the best of his 19 saves to keep the Caps off the board.

There was still plenty of hockey remaining in the game, of course, but no moment encapsulated the Capitals’ general mood in the series quite like that one.

Indecisive. Frustrated.

The Hurricanes have a way of doing that to good teams — great teams, like these Capitals. Carolina’s done it so well it’s pushed Eastern Conference champion Washington to the brink of elimination, snagging a 3-1 series lead behind two dominant home games and an overtime victory back in Game 1 in Washington, D.C.

Andersen, who leads the NHL in all of the major goaltending categories, was stellar again Monday, turning back 19 of 21 shots to earn his sixth win of these 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. (Pyotr Kochetkov had the win to close out New Jersey in Round 1.)

And for all of those superlatives that described the Capitals’ comportment, the opposites were generally true for Carolina.

Decisive. Confident.

Goals from Shayne Gostisbehere in the first period, Seth Jarvis in the second and Taylor Hall in the third were enough on that end of the ice, and the Canes played within themselves — and coach Rod Brind’Amour’s much talked about system — limiting Washington’s chances, creating offensive bursts and allowing Andersen to be comfortable in his crease.

All of that now gives Carolina a chance to close out a second consecutive playoff series in five games. The difference: Game 5 this time around will be in hostile territory.

First period, and a goal?

In a departure from the first three games of the series, a team finally scored in the first period.

After another early flurry from the Capitals, during which Andersen made a handful of stops through traffic, the Canes pushed back. After the Hurricanes’ fourth unit of Eric Robinson, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Jackson Blake hemmed the Caps in their own zone for a spell, the puck found its way out to the center point and Gostisbehere, who ducked and danced his way across the line in a series of moves that left Washington forward Brandon Duhaime looking for a piece of equipment or two.

Gostishebere curled to the top of the left circle and fired a wrister through traffic in front of Logan Thompson, the puck sailing past the screened keeper for a 1-0 lead.

The Caps had the benefit of a pair of power plays in the latter half of the period, the first on a roughing call to Sean Walker and the second a four-minute double minor to Jordan Martinook, who caught defender Jakob Chychrun up high with his stick.

The latter of those bled into the second period, but the Caps did no damage. The Canes, in fact, had more high-danger scoring chances shorthanded than the Capitals did with the extra skater.

Staying engaged

After a flurry of activity that got Andersen engaged early – including a pair of shots that fluttered off his glove and into the corner, shots he would normally snag and hold – the Danish netminder saw little action the rest of the opening period.

But he still had to be sharp, particularly early in the second. On a broken zone entry that saw Tom Wilson finally get the puck to Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer. Ovechkin … passed, hitting Dylan Strome on the back door to Andersen’s left, where he one-timed what he thought was an easy goal toward the cage. Anderson slid hard from right to left, though, and was there in time to square up and knock the shot down with the center of his body and stick paddle.

The Canes doubled their lead early in the second, after the penalty kill time was over, when Seth Jarvis cleaned up an off-the-post rebound in front of Thompson on a blistering shot from Sebastian Aho.

Afterward, the Capitals opened things up a bit, and Andersen saw a bit more action. In addition to the Strome chance, Washington penned Carolina in for a good chunk of time through the middle part of the period. At one point, Jalen Chatfield was on the ice for more than two minutes straight, unable to change with the pressure combined with the long change teams face in the second.

Stretching the lead

After the Capitals broke through with a goal at 5:18 of the third and set the Canes back on their heels a bit, Carolina reestablished its two-goal lead thanks to perhaps the longest pass of the night from any player on either team.

Hall got caught up the ice after getting spilled in the corner, leaving the Canes to defend 4-on-5. But they did so, with Sean Walker slinging the puck up the boards to Jack Roslovic. Hall, just then exiting the Caps’ zone at the other end of the ice, banged his stick and caught Roslovic’s attention. Roslovic labled a 100-foot pass to Hall, who went in alone and scored on Thompson low blocker, pushing Carolina’s lead to 3-1.

It was a needed cushion, too. Minutes later, the Capitals fed off a pair of penalties to the Hurricanes and got Ovechkin a much-needed goal – from his office at the left circle on a 5-on-3 power play – to again pull within one at 3-2.

Walker finished off his own rush with the Caps pressing at 16:45, though, to again push the Canes’ lead back to two at 4-2. Andrei Svechnikov struck the final nail with an empty-net goal at 17:39.

Alexander Nikishin tease

Sharp-eyed attendees at Game 4 on Monday caught a glimpse of Carolina Hurricanes defender Alexander Nikishin on the ice for warmups. Two days after Chatfield played minimally in Game 3, the Hurricanes deemed him ready to go at morning skate.

But Nikishin, whose arrival in Raleigh has been the subject of much discussion — and debate, with respect to lineup changes — was on the ice for team warmups Monday night ahead of Game 4, fully dressed in his No. 21 jersey and skating alongside the rest of the game-ready Canes.

He did not draw into the lineup.

Capitals felt ‘urgency’

With a win on the road in Game 1, the Hurricanes snagged home-ice advantage back from the Capitals, who finished the regular season with the best record in the Eastern Conference. The Capitals righted their ship with a win in Game 2, but the Hurricanes clamped down in Game 3, posting a shutout to take a 2-1 series lead.

Washington knew Game 4 was as much of a must-win as a game can be without truly being an elimination game.

Wilson, 31, stayed out late after morning skate Monday, continuing to work after several players had headed to the locker room ahead of him.

He was in no hurry to leave afterward, either, taking a seat in the room to patiently answer media questions.

“At this point there’s urgency with our group, which there needs to be,” Wilson said of Game 4. “We need to be dialed in. We know it’s going to be a fight for every inch.

“It’s another opportunity to go out and leave it all out there, and I think as a group we’re ready for that. When you have a group like this and you look each other in the eye, you expect to have a bounce back. It’s the recipe you want in your locker room, an accountability and dependability for the guy next to you to show up.”

Game 5, then, now truly a must-win, should only amplify that feeling in the Capitals’ locker room.

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