Blues Overwhelm Caps, 5-2

For the first period of Tuesday night's game between the Caps and the St. Louis Blues at Capital One Arena, the Caps hung with the visitors. But Washington's team defense was uncharacteristically porous, and it wasn't able to keep the Blues' best players quiet offensively. The Caps suffered a 5-2 setback as a result, dropping both ends of a two-game homestand against Central Division opponents.

"We gave up way too much in the first period," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "Too many mental mistakes, too many soft mistakes. Too easy to play against."
The Caps and Blues traded a quartet of goals in a high event first frame. Washington got the scoring started on a power play just ahead of the midpoint of the period when Evgeny Kuznetsov's shot from the right circle glanced off the glove of St. Louis netminder Ville Husso. Kuznetsov's goal extended his career-high point streak to 10 games, lifting the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 8:22 of the first.
Not long after the midpoint of the first, Brandon Saad squared the score for St. Louis with an excellent individual effort. Saad picked a puck off the wall high in his own end of the ice, then scooted up the left side, cutting to the middle of the ice in the neutral zone. He split the Caps' defense and tucked a backhander through the pads of Vitek Vanecek to make it a 1-1 contest at 11:48.
"I just picked it up in the [defensive] zone there," says Saad. "I was looking over at [Ryan O'Reilly], I think he was on the right side. I tried to go to him to have support, and I kind of saw that [defenseman] lagging, so I just figured [I'd] challenge him, and ended up with a breakaway."
Just over a minute later, the Caps restored their lead. Anthony Mantha forced a turnover at the Washington line, and he tore off on a 2-on-1 rush with Tom Wilson riding shotgun. Mantha issued a perfect feed to Wilson, who snapped a wrist shot past Husso from the inside of the right circle at 13:01.
Late in the frame, the Blues evened it up on their first power play of the game. David Perron cranked a shot on net from just above the top of the left circle, and Vanecek made the stop. Saad got the rebound and banged another shot from in tight, which Vanecek also stopped. But Saad got to it yet again, sweeping it to O'Reilly for a back-door layup and a 2-2 game at 17:15 of the second.
Washington turned in a subpar second period, falling down by a pair of goals in the process. The Caps weren't able to do anything with an early power play in the second, and soon afterwards, Vanecek had to make one of his best saves of the season, a sprawling glove save on Jordan Kyrou's shot off a 3-on-1 rush.
But the Caps weren't able to hold off the St. Louis surge for much longer. Old friend Nathan Walker scored to put the Blues in the lead for good at 10:31, a goal on which the Blues traversed the length of the ice far too easily. From his own goal line, Colton Parayko sent Schenn galloping through the middle of the ice and into Washington territory. Vanecek got a glove on his shot, but couldn't hold it, and Schenn swept it to Walker for an open net tap in and a 3-2 St. Louis lead.
Late in the middle period, St. Louis tacked on an insurance tally on the forecheck. The Blues dumped it in and went to work in the corner. When the puck came out of the pile, Kyrou sent it to Schenn, who was behind the Washington net. Recognizing the lack of coverage in front, Saad curled out to the front of the cage and fired. Vanecek made the stop, but Schenn got a second whack and he didn't miss, swatting home his own rebound to make it a 4-2 game at 17:13.
Mercifully for the Capitals, the third period was a quick one with only 10 face-offs. The Caps couldn't get anything started offensively over the final 40 minutes, getting outshot 22-8 and out-attempted 31-16 at even strength during that stretch. Vanecek stopped everything else sent in his direction, but the Caps couldn't catch a spark of any kind, falling again, two nights after a 3-2 loss to Dallas.
"[The first period] was our best period, offensively," says Laviolette. "Not that it was great, but that was our best period."
David Perron accounted for the 5-2 final with a late empty-netter.
"We went to the net hard tonight," says Blues coach Craig Berube. "We scored some goals around the net, and on the power play, too. You've got to get to the net, and we did a good job of it tonight."