For the fifth time in 25 Caps games this season, a perfectly good hockey game suffered the ignominy of a shootout, and the Canucks came away with the extra point in a seven-round, postgame skills competition. It goes into the books as a 2-1 Vancouver win, leaving the Caps saddled with consecutive losses (0-1-1) for the first time in more than a month, since they dropped three in a row from Oct. 5-10 (0-1-2).
"It was nice to get a win tonight," says Canucks coach Travis Green. "We played a hell of a hockey game against one of the best teams in the league, and you're proud of your group when you play like that."
This was one of those games where both teams got a point, and both coaches can be reasonably happy with the outcome because red lights were minimal.
"I liked our start, I liked the first," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, whose team was down 4-0 after 20 minutes the last time it played an afternoon game. "And then we take a penalty, and then I feel like we lost a lot of momentum there. Then we take another penalty, and obviously that's something we've got to clean up.
"They score 5-on-3 to tilt the ice a little bit in their favor, and it took us a while to get it back. But for the most part, at 5-on-5, we did some good things."
Washington got out to a quick start, scoring an early goal on the forecheck to grab a 1-0 lead. Lars Eller fought for the puck below the goal line in Vancouver ice, and after winning that battle, he put a precise backhand pass to the front for Jakub Vrana, who opened up and one-timed a shot past Jacob Markstrom at 2:22 of the first.