Although they scored two goals in the first period of a home game for the first time in just over two months, the early 2-0 lead the Caps forged over the visiting Carolina Hurricanes proved to be fool’s gold on Friday night at Capital One Arena. The Canes dominated throughout the contest, slow playing the Caps to a 6-2 setback with a six-pack of unanswered goals, five of them in the third period.
Many words were spoken and written about the vaunted Carolina forecheck in the hours leading up to Friday’s game, but the Caps rarely had an answer for it, and they rarely had the puck.
“I didn’t think it was close the entire game,” assesses Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “Even though we had the 2-0 lead, it never, never, felt comfortable. It never felt like we had any momentum in that game, other than on the scoreboard. So you knew we were in a really difficult spot, and we couldn’t flip it.”
Despite being outplayed and out possessed by a fair amount in the first frame of Friday’s game, the Caps took a 2-0 lead to the room after the first 20 minutes of play. For Washington, it was the first multi-goal first frame on home ice since Nov. 4 against Columbus.
The Caps spent the first few minutes of the game scuffling, but Darcy Kuemper papered over a few miscues in front of him to keep the game scoreless until Nic Dowd and linemates drew first blood on the forecheck.
Beck Malenstyn lofted the puck into the left wing corner, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel outraced a pair of Carolina defenders – both of whom remained puck-focused – to dig it out and put a feed to the front for Dowd, who was all alone. The veteran center found more than enough time and space with which to wait out and beat Canes’ goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, lifting the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 7:06.
For the first time this season, the Caps’ power play delivered a lamplighter in a third straight game. A mere 15 seconds after Aliaksei Protas drew a hooking call on Jesper Kotkaniemi in Washington ice, John Carlson and Alex Ovechkin combined to set up Dylan Strome for a re-direct from the top of the paint and a 2-0 lead at 16:29.
With the secondary helper on the goal, Carlson notched the 500th assist of his NHL career on the 14th anniversary of his game-winning, overtime, gold-medal winning goal for Team USA in the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship.
“It’s always nice to reach a milestone,” says Carlson. “It hangs over everyone’s head a lot more than anyone would want, and it’s a proud accomplishment of mine. But I would have liked to celebrate it.”
Carolina finished the opening period with a 30-12 advantage in shot attempts at 5-on-5, but the penalty-free middle frame was even more lopsided toward the visitors, who were able to cut the Caps’ cushion in half.
The red-hot Andrei Svechnikov won a puck battle in the left wing corner of the Washington end, and veteran blueliner Brent Burns alertly activated on the weak side. The former hit the latter with a perfect feed, and Burns buried it, making it a 2-1 contest at 5:17.
Outshot 9-4 and out-attempted 21-7 in the second period, Washington had one glorious opportunity to go back up by a pair when it managed a short-ice two-on-none with Dylan Strome carrying and Max Pacioretty alongside on the left. Strome made the feed, but Pacioretty’s shot rang the crossbar behind Kochetkov.
Seeking to nurse that precarious one-goal lead to the final horn as they’ve done on several occasions this season, the Caps’ first couple of shifts of the third period were assertive, offensive-zone shifts from the Strome and Dowd lines.
But old friend Dmitry Orlov – the subject of a stirring video tribute in his first visit to Capital One Arena since he was traded to Boston last February – helped swing the tide for his new team just past the three-minute mark of the third.
Orlov carried from his own end all the way to the back of the Washington net, where rookie Vasily Ponomarev collected and fed Seth Jarvis, just off the right post. Jarvis got a backhander behind Kuemper from the top of the paint, tying the game at 2-2 at 3:23 of the third.
“They get a full ice [defenseman] skate, and he runs into another [defenseman] behind the net, the puck squirts out and they get kind of a chintzy goal, and then momentum switches,” says Dowd. “But as a group, we’re an old enough team to understand that hockey is a funny game like that. You’re going to win games when you shouldn’t, and you’re going to lose games when you shouldn’t.
“It’s our responsibility as a team to just feel that momentum, and to create our own to change things. Which I guess we didn’t do a good enough job of tonight.”
Kochectkov needed to make a couple of stops on Protas in the third, covering up for giveaways in front of him. But more often than not, the Caps couldn’t string enough tape-to-tape passes together to get cleanly into Carolina ice, and on too many of those occasions, they committed unforced icings, bringing the puck right back to their end for yet another defensive zone draw – there were 25 in Washington’s end and only 14 in Carolina’s on this night – where anything could – and eventually did – go wrong.
Washington’s Beck Malenstyn was boxed for slashing a few seconds after one of those defensive zone draws, and the Canes grabbed the lead for good on the ensuing power play, going up 3-2 on a Svechnikov one-timer from the right dot at 12:47.
Evgeny Kuznetsov unwisely took another slashing call in the aftermath of the goal, putting Carolina right back on the power play, and the Canes’ lethal extra-man unit struck again, this time on a Burns bomb from center point at 13:59.
It marked the fifth time in the last six games that Carolina has struck for multiple power-play goals in a game.
During a late Washington power play with Kuemper pulled for an extra attacker, Orlov bit the hand that once fed him, lofting a nine iron from the corner of his own end of the ice into the middle of the cage to make it a 5-2 game with 1:48 left. Orlov’s goal was the fifth shorthanded goal by a Carolina defenseman this season.
Carolina wasn’t done. With Kuemper back in the cage, Ponomarev made his NHL debut even more memorable, scoring the fifth Carolina goal of the frame at 19:01.
Friday’s victory in the District gives Carolina a season-high five-game winning streak.
“I loved the way we played,” says Canes’ coach Rod Brind’Amour. “The first period I thought was great; we gave up a couple of chances and they ended up in the net. But I just liked the way the guys – we always talk about sticking with our game and sticking to what we have to do – they didn’t get off, they didn’t get off track.”
When it was all said and done, the Capitals didn’t do enough to help themselves on this night. They were never able to consistently break the Carolina forecheck or to string together passes, shifts, or anything other than backing into their own end – or lining up for a defensive zone draw – and getting ready to defend again.
“We’re going to get to work on getting better, collectively and individually,” says Carbery. “We’ve got to get to work. We’ve got a lot of growing to do.”
