Playing their first game of calendar 2026 and the final game of the first half of the 2025-26 season on Thursday afternoon in Ottawa, the Caps did something they hadn’t done to this point of the season, namely let a multi-goal lead slip away in a loss.
Washington put together a solid first period that staked it to a 2-0 lead over the Senators, but the Caps could not sustain most of the positive elements of that start beyond the first half of the game, and they suffered a 4-3 loss at Canadian Tire Centre.
“We put ourselves in a good spot, had a great start,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Loved our first period, loved everything that we were doing. And you expect a push, right? They’re going to push back after the way the first period goes and after we took control of that game early on, and they pushed back.”
The shift in the game’s tenor wasn’t abrupt or attributable to one big play or turning point, but the good work Washington did in the offensive zone in the opening period was absent for too large a swath of the afternoon, and they went lengthy stretches without testing Ottawa netminder Leevi Merilainen.
The Caps poured 16 shots on the Ottawa net in the first, and they took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission. But from early in the second period until late in the third, the Caps were outshot 24-5 and outscored 3-0, falling down by a 3-2 count.
When Aliaksei Protas delivered the game-tying goal on a pretty passing sequence with 4:07 left in the third, it came on the Caps’ first shot in nearly 15 minutes, and just their third even-strength shot in more than 24 minutes of playing time.
The Protas goal wasn’t enough to get the Caps out of town with a point, though, because Fabian Zetterlund finished a nifty Thomas Chabot feed in transition with just 2:22 left in the game, restoring the Ottawa lead and enabling the home team to stifle its three-game losing streak (0-2-1).
“The first period was great, and then no excuses, it fell apart in the second and the third,” says Caps goaltender Logan Thompson. “That’s what happens when you let good teams hang around; they have a lot of firepower and I think they got two weird goals there [in the second] and then two in the third.
“Sometimes you’ve got to tip your hat as a goalie; I thought they deserved to win, especially in the third where you felt the ice was tilting, and unfortunately we weren’t able to even grab a point tonight.”
For the second time in as many afternoons, the Caps authored a strong start on Thursday afternoon in Ottawa. They had to kill off an early penalty, which they did with aplomb. Thompson had to make just one save, a laser off the stick of Tim Stützle. Thompson made a blocker stop on that shot, getting a clear in the process by punching the puck out to neutral ice.
Soon after the kill was complete, the Caps forced an Ottawa icing, and they opened the scoring a dozen seconds after Justin Sourdif won the ensuing offensive zone draw. Tom Wilson scored his third goal in less than 24 hours, burying the rebound of a Sourdif shot. Had Wilson not scored, the Caps would have been headed to the power play; Ottawa’s Drake Batherson put a wicked cross-check on Sourdif at the top of the paint.
Just over a minute after the goal, Ottawa defenseman Artem Zub tripped Washington Protas into the end boards on a dangerous play that left the big Belarusian prone on the ice for several seconds. Protas exited the game briefly, but he obviously returned.
Washington was able to put together some decent forechecking shifts in the first, and Brandon Duhaime drew a hi-sticking call on ex-Cap Nick Jensen late in the frame.
The Caps doubled their lead with the man advantage. Ryan Leonard took a hard hit from Stützle to make a play to Jakob Chychrun, who then dished to Dylan Strome. From center point, Strome picked his spot and fired it to the twine to put the Caps up 2-0 at 18:59.
Ottawa gradually worked itself back into the contest in the middle period. The Caps weren’t nearly as assertive in the offensive zone or on the forecheck, and the Sens were able to create some dangerous opportunities for themselves.
Washington couldn’t advance its lead with a power play early in the second period, and the Sens cut the lead in half when Jensen bit the hand that once fed him, pumping the rebound of a Jake Sanderson that clanged iron behind Thompson at 7:42 of the second.
For the second time in as many afternoons, the Caps were nicked for a game-tying goal against in the final minute of a period. On Wednesday, the Rangers squared the score at 1-1 in the final minute of the first. On Thursday, it was Ottawa’s Ridly Greig who scored to tie the game at 2-2 with 28.8 seconds remaining. Grieg tipped a Shane Pinto shot on net, then managed to squeeze the rebound beneath Thompson to shrink the contest into a 20-minute hockey game.
At 2:47 of the third, Ottawa grabbed its first lead of the game when David Perron converted an excellent feed from Stephen Halliday behind the Washington net.
Thompson and a solid penalty kill kept the Caps within one until the late Protas goal, but the Caps weren’t able to eke the game into overtime and scrape a point.
“Obviously we got out to a good start,” says Strome. “It just seems like right now, we're finding ways to lose games, and that's got us something that we got to fix and correct.”
The Caps won’t have to wait long for their next chance to fix and correct. After a much-needed day off on Friday, they’ll host Chicago in the opener of a three-game homestand Saturday night.
