Thanks to Logan Thompson, the Caps somehow eked Tuesday’s series opening contest with the Carolina Hurricanes into overtime, giving Washington a chance to win it with a single shot, as it did just over two weeks ago in its first-round series opener with the Montreal Canadiens.
But the Carolina Hurricanes aren’t the Montreal Canadiens, as the Caps were reminded for virtually every shift of Tuesday’s Game 1. Carolina blueliner Jaccob Slavin put the Caps out of their misery when his seeing eye shot from the right point wended its way through traffic and found purchase behind Thompson at 3:06 of the extra session.
Slavin’s goal gives the Canes a 2-1 Game 1 victory and a 1-0 series lead.
“The puck came out to me at the point there, and I was just trying to get it to the net,” recounts Slavin. “I knew we had some numbers at the net, and I didn’t know it went in until I saw Jordan Staal coming with his arms up, yelling at me. It’s a huge win as a team.”
Carolina deals in volume, and the Hurricanes’ 94th shot attempt of the night produced their second goal of the game; Thompson made 31 saves and 15 different Capitals combined to block 32 shots in front of him. Meanwhile, Washington managed a mere 14 shots on net in the game – and just 34 shot attempts at all strength – to score their lone goal.
“I thought our guys played hard every shift, right from the start of the game,” says Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour. “I liked how we were playing. Obviously, we were down but there is a certain game plan; both teams have it. I thought we were on it tonight. Sometimes you don’t get rewarded, but tonight we did.”
Name an aspect of the game, and aside from blocked shots, the Caps were on the short end of it on this forgettable night.
“If we sat here and went through the whole game, from breakout to getting through the neutral zone to forecheck to wall play, it wasn’t good,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And that’s the bottom line. Our entire game was not good. We’ll regroup and get ready for Game 2.
Washington knew what it was in for in going up against Carolina, but in Tuesday’s Game 1, it was powerless to stop the fusillade of rubber directed toward Thompson from the game’s first minute to the final minute.
Carolina featured sharp, crisp and clean breakouts that enabled them to zip through neutral ice with speed virtually all night long, many of them lengthy stretch passes, most of them right on the tape. Once in the offensive zone, they teed up shots from anywhere and everywhere, and Thompson stymied them for nearly 50 minutes.
Washington’s breakouts sometimes seemed accidental; more often their high flips to relieve pressure came right back at them, and often with the same personnel on the ice. The Caps were rarely able to string passes together, their forecheck was non-existent, and their collective stores of energy were burned down to the wick by spending most of the night defending in their own end.
Aliaksei Protas gave the Caps some life early in the second period when he scored the game’s first goal and the first playoff goal of his NHL career. After taking a short feed from Brandon Duhaime at the Washington line, Protas carried down the right side and zipped a shot from the right circle past Carolina goaltender Frederick Andersen for a 1-0 Washington lead at 3:53 of the second period.
“I felt like it was not going our way,” says Protas. “We needed to take a shot or something. I found a good spot and luckily it went in.”
For more than 25 minutes of playing time afterwards, the Caps nursed that 1-0 lead.
Improbably, the Capitals carried that slim lead into the third period of Tuesday’s game. They were actually in a position to steal Game 1 if they could just put together a strong 20 minutes to close out the contest.
In the first minute of the third period, the Caps even had a chance to add to the advantage when they went on the man advantage for the second time on the night. But Washington couldn’t enter cleanly or get established in the offensive zone, and the extra man opportunity went by the wayside without as much as a single shot attempt.
If it looked unsustainable – and it did – it’s because it was.
Midway through the third, the Caps turned it over in front of Thompson, and a quick feed from Jesper Kotkaniemi to Logan Stankoven resulted in the tying tally at 9:42 of the third. Stankoven struck from the slot on a bang-bang play, and a television graphic showed the Canes with an egregiously lopsided 44-6 advantage in shot attempts between the Protas and Stankoven goals.
Carolina had an opportunity to close out the Caps in regulation when Jakub Chychrun was boxed for hi-sticking with just over two minutes remaining in regulation, but the Caps managed to kill it off. Washington killed off all three Carolina power plays on the night, but even then, they were playing with fire; the Caps got away with several failed clears on their penalty kill.
Aside from Thompson’s performance, the best thing to be said about Washington’s Game 1 performance is that it only counts as one loss and this is a best-of-seven series. But the Caps also know they’re got to find their game quickly. The Stanley Cup playoffs don’t allow much leeway in the way of losing streaks, and the Caps have already lost hold of the home ice advantage they worked to earn all season long.
“There’s enough experience in this group,” says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. “It’s one game. I don’t think anyone expected the playoffs just to be a straight line of ups; there’s going to be ups and downs and the next game is the biggest game.
“Our focus is on Game 2. We’ll regroup here and we’ll put in the work the next couple of days. We’ve got to take the next one and use the home ice to at least get one here.”
