Caps Stanley Cup Winner over Vegas;It Was Goalie vs Goalie

My prediction for last night's Game 5 for The Stanley Cup was:

LV 5;  Caps 4 in OT.

Actual Final Score:

Caps 4;  LV 3

Final series game total; Washington 4; Vegas 1.

And...I predicted a six-game series, but the Caps closed it down in five. Just another of my many inaccurate predictions. Eh ... I got a few right.

Game 5 definitely came down to Goalie vs Goalie; the Caps Braden Holtby and Vegas' Marc-Andre Fleury.

Neither team scored in the first period. After that, the pucks and goals started flying.

In the second period, with 13 minutes 36 seconds of play time remaining, Caps Jakub Vrana put Washington on the score board giving the Caps 1 to a yet-to-score Vegas.

Vegas answered Vrana's goal slightly over three minutes later when Nate Schmidt tied the game 1 - 1. The tie was short-lived. About 45 seconds later, Alex Ovechkin put the Caps up by another goal. The one goal advantage for the Caps didn't last long. Not quite three minutes later, David Perron scored and put the game at 2 - 2. And with 30 seconds remaining in period 2, Vegas scored again with Reilly Smith, ending P2 with Vegas at 3, Washington at 2. Smith's goal would be the last goal for Vegas.

Not quite ten minutes into P3, Devante Smith-Pelly scored as he fell to the ice and with a sweep of the stick, slid the puck past Fleury. Three and a half minutes later, Caps' Lars Eller scored putting the game at Caps 4; Vegas 3 - the final score of the game.

It was an incredible game.

 2018 Stanley Cup Winner: The Washington Capitals

Ovechkin was awarded MVP, and deservedly so.

When P3 ended with the Caps win, Ovechkin was ready for some beers.

The game had its share of skirmishes, but not as physical as I'd expected. 

The BBC notes:

Ovechkin became the first Russia-born captain to lift the Stanley Cup[.]

The game clock died, or for whatever reason was unavailable, in the final minute of the game. That added a few moments of confusion and suspense, but the clock re-booted or returned.

After 44 years of being an NHL team, the Caps won their first Stanley Cup. In their first season, Vegas earned their way into the Cup finals. You couldn't have planned for a Stanley Cup playoff with two such disparate teams.

Holtby and Fleury were so evenly matched - the game could have gone either way. But Holtby stopped one puck more than did Fleury.

This was a hell of a playoff series and Cup games.

NHL Training Camp for the 2018-2019 season begin mid-September with pre-season games starting a few weeks later.