During the 2021 postseason's opening round, Boston faced off against Washington. The Capitals owned the better seeding in that matchup, yet the club exited after a mere five games, and the pivotal turn arrived on a botched play by Ilya Samsonov, then a young goaltender, during the second extra frame of the third game.
On that sequence, the defenseman Justin Schultz and his goalie fumbled a handoff behind their own cage, gifting Craig Smith of Boston a simple series-altering tally. The moment the disc crossed the line, Ovechkin, who captained Washington, was visibly chewing out his netminder while the group headed toward the tunnel.
A double-OT winner slips past Samsonov
Alongside Evgeny Kuznetsov, his ex-teammate in Washington, Samsonov revisited the famous incident during a recent sit-down on the VK channel belonging to KHL club Salavat Yulaev.
According to a Google Translate version of his remarks, Samsonov recalled that Ovechkin had been demanding to know how often he'd been instructed never to wander behind his own net.
Kuznetsov chimed in to confirm that the message was about staying put in the crease. As he explained it, the standing rule in Washington held that a goalie shouldn't drift beyond the painted blue area.
Kuznetsov also pointed to exhaustion as a factor in the gaffe. He noted that once the final period hits, a player's legs essentially give out. You keep pushing because the playoffs are on the line, he said, but you're absorbing contact, scrambling around, and forever trying to slip away from somebody. There's always something unfolding, and you simply can't cruise leisurely through a game.
By that stage, Kuznetsov added, the contest had stretched into a second overtime past the 30-minute mark of bonus time, making it an extremely grueling night. Then, he recounted, Ilyukha opted to handle the puck and corral it back behind his cage, as though declaring he'd personally halt the action.
Smith, who scored the goal, eventually arrived in Washington through a deadline swap in 2023. While suiting up for the club, he revealed the sly wrinkle that probably triggered the breakdown between his two former opponents.
Per Kuznetsov, Smith wound up joining the roster roughly a year or two afterward, at the trade deadline, near the point when Orlov got dealt to the Bruins. Kuznetsov recounted that Smith confessed to having shouted at the Washington skaters to abandon the puck.
Washington dropped that third contest and was subsequently outscored by a 7-2 aggregate over the following two outings, exiting in short order from a second straight postseason marred by COVID-19. Samsonov hung on for just one additional year there before the front office, weary of his erratic play, chose not to tender a qualifying offer to him in 2022.
From there he logged three further NHL campaigns divided between Vegas and Toronto before linking back up with Kuznetsov in Russia's top league this past season. Across 14 outings with Sochi HC, his line read 3-8-0, with a save percentage of .903 and a goals-against mark of 3.27.