NEWARK http://www.washingtonredskinsteamonline.com/alex-smith-jersey , N.J. (AP) Talk about making the most of opportunities. Look at what New Jersey Devils goaltender Keith Kinkaid has done the last 10 weeks.Not only did he take over in late January after starter Cory Schneider was injured, he carried the Devils over the final two-plus months and heads into their first playoffs since 2012 as the No. 1 goaltender.Coach John Hynes on Tuesday refused to name his starting goaltender for Thursday night’s opener of the best-of-7 series with the Tampa Bay Lightning.There is, however, little doubt – Kinkaid will be starting his first postseason game. The 28-year-old undrafted free agent posted a 19-6-1 record after Schneider went down with hip and groin injuries. He had a 10-1-1 run in the 12 games that led to the Devils clinching a playoff berth Thursday.From Feb 13 to Apr. 5, Kinkaid had a 16-3-1 mark, a 2.32 goals-against average and .929 save percentage. The win total was the most by an NHL goalie in the span.”He is a gamer,” veteran center Brian Boyle said. ”He competes. He never gives up on plays, especially down the stretch he has given us a real jolt and lifted us up. He’s been a huge part of our team.”Kinkaid is never too high, never too low. He lets in a goal, shrugs it off and gets ready for the next play.It’s not like when Marty Brodeur played and there were chants of ”Mar-tee, Mar-tee” after every big save. Or when Schneider was playing well and chants of ”CORE-EE” filled the Prudential Center. Kinkaid seems to go unnoticed.The 6-foot-3 goalie acknowledges that a few more fans recognize him lately, and he has been getting more texts.”I take it with a grain of salt,” he said. ”There is still a lot of work to do.”Kinkaid said his approach to the postseason won’t change.”You can’t take this any different from what we did at the end of the season when we had to win pretty much all our games to get in,” said Kinkaid, who got a rare night off in the regular-season finale Saturday. ”It’s no different here.”Devils captain Andy Greene said the toughest job for a backup – which Kinkaid handled for the past three seasons – is showing what you can do. It’s especially hard when the backup plays in the second game of a back-to-back and his team is tired.”This time, he knew going in he was going to have some time,” Greene said. ”He worked really hard in practice and you can see just how much more confident he is. Like I said 30 times. He is very square to the puck, confident, and when you are feeling that way, the puck seems to find you. He has been a rock back there and we are just feeding off him.”Center Travis Zajac, who along with Greene are the only leftovers from the Devils’ team that played in the Stanley Cup Finals, said this is the best he has seen Kinkaid play.”He has always made big plays, but now he is doing it more consistently,” Zajac said. ”He has given us a chance to win every night. I think that’s the main thing. You just see that consistency in his game, where he is not letting any weak goals in. He is confident now, and that’s a big part of it, too.”Hynes said Kinkaid has gotten better along the way.”That’s preparation, his mental focus, his ability to get to a high level, night in and night out,” Hynes said. ”That’s an improvement for him to go from a guy who didn’t play every night to that and perform real well. That has allowed him to take advantage of his opportunity.”— PITTSBURGH (AP) The Washington Capitals don’t need a history lesson. Neither do the Winnipeg Jets for that matter.The Capitals are well aware of their penchant for letting opportunity after opportunity slip away, frequently at the hands of Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.And just in case Alex Ovechkin and his teammates ever forget about their playoff missteps, they need only step in front of a camera or a microphone Authentic Matt Ioannidis Jersey , where the same questions are posed year after year.There’s only one way to hop off the hamster wheel: close out the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins this week – preferably at the end of Game 6 Monday night (7 p.m., NBCSN) in Pittsburgh – to earn the franchise’s first trip to the Eastern Conference finals in 20 years.”I don’t know if I could tell you exactly what it would mean,” Washington forward T.J. Oshie said.”None of us have ever been there. We’re just looking to get the job done and maybe after we can talk about the feelings. But right now we still got a lot of work to do.”Work that in the past has proven to be too much. Four previous times during the Ovechkin Era – including in 2009 and 2017 against Pittsburgh – the Capitals have won three games in the second round of the playoffs. It’s that fourth one that’s proven elusive.No pressure or anything. All Washington has to do to produce a cathartic breakthrough is hand the Penguins their first series loss in 37 months.Pittsburgh has never lost an elimination game under head coach Mike Sullivan, capturing a pair of Game 7s – including a 2-0 shutout in Washington in the second round – during its run to a second straight Cup last spring and rallying from a 3-2 deficit against Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference finals two years ago.”They know what it takes to win,” Sullivan said. ”They’re not afraid of challenges and they embrace these types of situations.”To become the first team in 35 years to earn three consecutive titles, the Penguins don’t really have a choice.They were the better team for long stretches in Game 5 only to have the Capitals surge past them in the third period for a 6-3 win – the second time in three games Pittsburgh lost in regulation when leading after two, something it didn’t do at all in the regular season.No matter. Recovering quickly and moving forward has kind of been their thing under Sullivan. The Penguins are 17-5 following a playoff loss with Sullivan on the bench.Pushing that number to 18-5 would send the series back to Washington and force the Capitals try to explain – again – how this time will be different.”We knew it was going to be a tight series,” Crosby said. ”We need to make sure we leave it all out there, give ourselves a chance to get back (to Washington).”At least the Capitals put themselves in position for playoff heartbreak. That’s hardly the case with the Jets, who until a month ago had won exactly zero postseason games in their 18 years of existence and now find themselves one victory away from the Western Conference finals.Winnipeg has never been this far. Ever. The Jets put themselves in position when they stunned Nashville by scoring four goals in the second period against Vezina Trophy finalist Pekka Rinne during a 6-2 romp in ”Smashville” in Game 5, sending them home for Game 6 (9:30 p.m., NBCSN) with a chance to wrap up the series.Not that the Jets want to talk about it.”That’s noise. It’s kind of a distraction,” Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler said.”What we’re focused on is what’s given us success all year long, and that’s just finding a way to win one hockey game. If we’re able to do that, then when it’s all said and done you’re reflecting on the season and you’ll think about what you were able to accomplish and the magnitude of the situation. But we can’t make it bigger than a game.”The Predators, unlike the Jets, have been here before. They faced elimination in the first round against Anaheim in 2016 but came back to advance, triumphing in the crucible of Game 7 for the first time in franchise history in the process.”It’s pretty simple, we win we keep playing,” Nashville forward Filip Forsberg said. ”If we don’t, we don’t play anymore. Obviously that desperation level is going to be a determining factor for sure.”It’s a feeling long familiar in Washington. The Capitals received a dose of good news on Sunday when coach Barry Trotz said center Nicklas Backstrom will travel with the team after leaving in the third period of Game 5 with an upper-body injury.Whoever is on the ice will be forced to shoulder the weight of playoff failures, one Trotz is confident his team is finally ready to shrug off for good.”I can tell you there’s not a player, a coach, a trainer, ownership, (general manager) who is not trying to do everything they can to win this series,” Trotz said. ”Trust me. We’re trying as hard as we can and at the end of the day that’s all we can promise.”—AP Sports Writer Teresa Walker in Nashville, Tennessee, and AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.—