Ristolainen and went into the net

TAMPA Authentic Aaron Donald Jersey , Fla. (AP) Alex Ovechkin is thrilled, though hardly satisfied.The Washington Capitals star is headed to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in his 13-year career, eager to put more distance between the Eastern Conference champions and a lingering perception of Ovechkin and the Caps as playoff underachievers.”Finally we get what we want, be in the Stanley Cup Final,” the 32-year-old Russian star said. ”There’s still a lot of hockey to play.”Ovechkin scored just over a minute into Washington’s 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final Wednesday night.Braden Holtby stopped 29 shots to notch his second straight shutout. Andre Burakovsky scored two goals, and Nicklas Backstrom added an empty-netter to help the Capitals close it out.Now, they’ve got to do it again against the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, who are Western Conference champions in their inaugural season.”I feel very happy, but we’re not finished yet,” Ovechkin said. ”We’ve been waiting for this moment a long time.”The Golden Knights breezed through the Western Conference, scoring 43 goals and allowing 27 while going 12-3 to eliminate the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Winnipeg Jets during an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final.Vegas went 2-0 against the Capitals in the regular season, winning 3-0 at home on Dec. 23 and 4-3 at Washington on Feb. 4.”It’s a great story. They’re a good hockey team, they have a lot of good players, players from other teams – I know a lot of people say we didn’t want those players, but we all did,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said.”The rules were the rules. They did a great job, they’ve been galvanized as a group. There’s nothing tighter than that first-year group because there’s no pre-conceived notion. Leadership’s not in place, nobody knows where to live, all those things are galvanizing.”The Golden Knights’ top scorer during the playoffs has been former Lightning forward Jonathan Marchessault with 18 points (eight goals, 10 assists). Alex Tuch is second among league rookies with nine points (six goals, three assists).Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who’s in the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight season and fifth time overall, has been a huge part of the team’s success, too, with a 1.68 goals-against-average and .947 save percentage.Fleury and teammate James Neal return to the Cup Final after facing each other in the championship round last year – Fleury with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Neal with the Nashville Predators.”They’re deep. They’re probably the most veteran team still playing in the playoffs. But they’ve done a fabulous job,” Trotz said. ”They’re a fabulous story. … It’s a great story, not only for our game, but for everybody.”To reach the Cup Final for the first time since 1998, the Caps beat Tampa Bay three times on the road to run their record to 8-2 away from home this postseason.The Lightning, the NHL’s highest-scoring team during the regular season Aaron Donald Jersey Elite , didn’t have a goal over the final 159 minutes, 27 seconds of the series.Ryan Callahan had Tampa Bay’s last goal at 33 seconds of the second period in Game 5.”It’s fun. I’m more happy for that group than I am personally,” Trotz said. ”They did it together. Everybody has been in all year. We kept growing on and off the ice.”And shoving aside a decade of playoff frustration.”The playoffs are fun,” Trotz added. ”They got to the next level and realized they’re not going to be defined by anything they’ve done or not done in the past.”—AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this story.— BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) For the first time in nearly a decade, the Buffalo Sabres had the bounces to go their way against the Chicago Blackhawks.Nicholas Baptiste scored two goals in the third period to lead the Sabres to a 5-3 win over the Blackhawks on Saturday. It was Buffalo’s first win over the Blackhawks since December 2009, snapping a 12-game losing streak against Chicago.The game featured deflections and redirections for both teams, with three of Buffalo’s five goals a result of fortuitous bounces.”Definitely some lucky bounces, that’s for sure,” said Sabres center Ryan O’Reilly, who had a goal and an assist. ”A little luck of the Irish tonight.”Benoit Pouliot and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Sabres – who wore green St. Patrick’s Day jerseys during warmups – and Chad Johnson made 34 saves.Baptiste was an unlikely star, picking up the sixth and seventh goals of his career.The 22-year-old tied the game at 3-3 early in the third on a long shot through traffic. With 1:56 remaining, he picked up the game-winner on a deflection. Following a faceoff win in the Chicago end, Marco Scandella’s shot from the point was deflected by Baptiste in the slot to put the Sabres on top for good.”That’s been the focus of our team for the last little while – getting shots to the net and getting bodies to the net and scoring some ugly ones and we got a couple tonight,” Baptiste said. ”That’s what it takes to score goals in this league and to win in this league.”The Sabres got a significant lift from the returning Jack Eichel, who was back in the lineup after missing 15 games because of an ankle injury. Eichel had one assist and five shots in 18:14.”It’s so nice to have him back,” O’Reilly said. ”The little things he does when he gets the puck, you feel like the whole building is like, `OK, what’s he going to do?’ The other team has to be so sharp when he’s out there and it makes us a more dangerous team.”Eichel briefly tweaked his ankle early in the third period, but said he was fine after the game.Jonathan Toews, Jordan Oesterle and Tomas Jurco scored for the Blackhawks, and Jean-Francois Berube made 27 saves.”A couple tips and just didn’t get the job done,” Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane said. ”It’s been a common theme here for a while. A lot of the games, it even seems we’re scoring the first goal and we can’t come up with anything. It’s kind of been that way all year.”Pouliot opened the scoring with 1:50 remaining in the first period. After Rasmus Ristolainen’s pass was deflected into the crease, Pouliot had an easy tap-in for his 13th goal of the season.Oesterle evened the score 8:15 into the second following a pretty passing sequence in the Sabres zone. After Toews led Patrick Kane with a drop pass, Kane swung to his right before firing a pass to a wide-open Oesterle in front of the Buffalo net. Oesterle had an easy finish for his fifth goal of the season.O’Reilly made it 2-1 on the power play with 8:53 left in the second, poking in a rebound that fell behind Berube after Eichel’s shot hit the goalie’s shoulder and went high into the air.Chicago evened the score again with 5:45 left in the second when a rebound from Toews’ shot hit Ristolainen and went into the net. Jurco was given credit for the goal.Toews made it 3-2 on a terrific one-man effort 20 seconds into the third period. After his initial shot on a 2-on-1 was stopped, the Blackhawks captain sped to the crease and stole the rebound off Johnson’s stick. The puck flipped into the air, and Toews batted it in for his 20th goal of the season.Reinhart added an empty-net goal with 38.4 seconds left.NOTES: Buffalo native Emily Pfalzer was honored in a ceremonial opening faceoff before the game. Pfalzer was a member of the United States women’s hockey team at the 2018 Olympics, winning the gold medal in a shootout victory against Canada. Pfalzer was also captain of the Buffalo Beauts in the National Women’s Hockey League in 2015-16 and 2016-17. … Sabres center Zemgus Girgensons was injured midway through the first period and did not return. … Sabres starting goalie Robin Lehner was a healthy scratch.UP NEXTBlackhawks: Home against St. Louis on Sunday.Sabres: Host the Nashville Predators on Monday.—