For the first half of the Caps’ first “rematch” of the season, Tuesday’s game against the Hurricanes in Carolina, Washington played a sturdy and smart game, and it was twice able to forge one-goal leads. But aside from being unable to add to those leads, the Caps’ penchant for penalties ultimately led to their undoing.
Andrei Svechnikov’s power-play goal with 6:04 left in regulation gave Carolina its first lead of the game, and Mark Jankowski’s late empty-netter sealed a 4-2 Canes victory over the Caps. And the Caps’ penalty kill was excellent on Tuesday; it was merely pressed into service far too frequently.
After Washington had the first two power plays of the game late in the first, Carolina had five straight man advantage opportunities in just under 30 minutes of playing time. The Caps killed the first four without incident, but Svechnikov’s backhander to the shelf snapped a 2-2 tie and helped the Canes to their sixth consecutive victory.
“We weren't able to sustain the pressure like we did in the first game of the year here, and we let them get rolling too much,” says Caps center Dylan Strome. “A little too much relying on [goaltender Logan Thompson], and making him make great save after great save.
“We’ve got to work on getting pucks out and sustaining some pressure, especially against a team like this. When they get in that spin cycle, it's tough to kind of get out of, and you saw it in the second period there. It felt we were in our own end most of the period, and obviously penalties; we’ve got to stay out of the box.”
Just ahead of the midpoint of the first period, the Caps jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Boone Jenner’s third goal in as many games. Jenner and his linemates entered the zone on a 3-on-1 rush, and the veteran center let a shot fly; it was stopped. Ryan Leonard came into possession, and he squeezed off a shot from the slot, only to have it blocked. But Leonard found the puck first and sent it to Jenner below the right circle. From there, Jenner fired a shot that eluded Pyotr Kochetkov at 9:26.
The two teams played a couple minutes worth of 4-on-4 hockey early in the first, and the Caps earned a pair of late power plays in the opening period. The infractions overlapped, giving Washington a 5-on-3 advantage of 14 seconds in duration.
A dozen seconds into the 5-on-3, it appeared as though Ilya Protas had scored, but video review showed the puck did not cross the goal line.
At 3:58 of the second, Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov used his stick to punch Logan Thompson’s pad – with the puck underneath it – and the game was even at 1-1. Caps coach Spencer Carbery issued a coach’s challenge, but to no avail. The game was tied, and the Caps were also on the penalty kill for the first time in the game.
“I think it's worth the challenge because to me it's under [Thompson’s] pad, and [Svechnikov] pushes his pad and the puck in,” says Carbery. “I've seen lots that get brought back in that scenario. The challenges we've talked about before; you just don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does, and so in those spots that [the goal] could come back, it doesn't for us there.”
Washington executed that kill without incident, with Thompson stopping a Sebastian Aho flank one-timer to keep the game even.
Less than a minute after completing the kill, the Caps regained the lead. Leonard went behind the Carolina cage to offer some puck support to a forechecking Alex Ovechkin. Coming away with the disc, Leonard pushed it to Dylan Strome at the bottom of the left circle. Strome then sent a diagonal dish to Justin Holl, who crept in from the right point and threaded a shot to the far corner. Holl’s first goal in his first game as a Capital lifted Washington to a 2-1 lead at 6:39.
“It was a great play by [Ovechkin],” Holl recounts. “He was digging in the corner, and then Lenny was able to get it out front to Stromer, who found me with a nice pass, and I was able to put it away.”
Ten seconds later, Kochetkov made one of his best stops of the night to deny Anthony Beauvillier from the top of the paint. That save loomed larger as the period and the game wore on; it was Washington’s last good chance of the period to pad that slim lead.
Washington was outshot 10-1 over the final dozen minutes of the middle period, a stretch that included a pair of Carolina power plays. The Canes were able to pull even late in the second on a favorable bounce; Eric Robinson tried to make a lateral feed off the rush, but the puck glanced off the stick of Caps defenseman Martin Fehervary and in, squaring the score at 2-2 with just 1:11 remaining.
“I thought we lost momentum in that second period,” says Carbery. “Everything going well, playing well; and we lose a little bit of momentum in the back half of that period, after the penalty kill. It was probably at the – I don't know – call it the eight-minute mark. We kill it off, and then they built off that power play.
“And our team is is learning, right? So, you have to learn how to manage those situations, and we just make another two, three, four, poor decisions there, where you just have to be intelligent as you work your way through a momentum shift in a game. And so, what do you need to do? ‘Okay, I just need to make sure that this puck gets to a good spot.’
“What happens? What do we do? We try to force something. Now we get caught in the neutral zone. Now it's a 2-2 game. We have to be able to get out of that period at 2-1.”
Coincidental minors to Leonard and Jackson Blake put the sides at 4-on-4 in the immediate aftermath of the Robinson goal, and soon it became a 4-on-3 Carolina advantage when Chychrun was boxed for hooking.
The Caps killed those penalties, and they killed an unwise offensive-zone slashing call on Leonard in the third, too. But Carbery was displeased with him taking that penalty at that point of the contest, and the sophomore winger – who did a lot of good things earlier in the game – found himself parked for the remainder of the evening.
“He did some good things,” says Carbery of Leonard. “But like I said, [the penalty] cannot happen. It cannot happen. And he’ll learn from it, but he didn’t see a shift for the rest of the game for that. You just cannot take a frustrating penalty and slash a guy twice when the game is on the line. Can’t happen.”
Washington has no time to rue this loss; the Caps head back home to open a five-game homestand on Wednesday against Montreal.
