Caps Come up Empty in Jersey

Over the course of an 82-game NHL schedule, teams are going to have a handful of routs both in their favor and against them. Four games into the 2018-19 season, the Caps have tasted both sides of that equation.

Facing the Devils in New Jersey's home opener in Newark on Thursday night, the Caps were outmanned and overwhelmed from the outset, and they ended up on the wrong side of a 6-0 thumping.
Eight nights earlier, it was the Caps putting the wood to the Boston Bruins in Washington in a 7-0 Capitals victory on opening night. In the aftermath of Thursday's loss, the Caps likely felt pangs of what the Bruins were feeling eight nights earlier in the District.

"I imagine so," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen. "It felt like [the Devils] had six or seven guys out there at times, and they were skating on ice and we were skating through mud. Give them some credit because they played really well, and we were not very good."
If you were a betting human, you would not have bet on the Capitals in Thursday's game. The Caps were finishing up a second set of back-to-back games in just over a week, with a five-day break in between, and backup goaltender Pheonix Copley was getting his first NHL start in 21 months. The Devils were coming in fresh off a four-day break, and were playing their home opener for the 2018-19 season.
From the first minutes of the game, the Devils seemed sharp and energized, and the Caps - aside from Copley - were off, and lethargic. Copley saw a lot of rubber early, and he made some strong saves to give his teammates a chance to find their legs and get their attack started, but neither ever happened.
"We've got to help [Copley] a lot more than we did tonight," laments Caps center Lars Eller. "It's hard for him to look good when you have to face a lot of big chances - breakaways and second chances. It was not easy for him tonight."

The only gears the Caps seemed able to find were neutral and reverse. New Jersey outworked, outhustled, outskated, outshot and outplayed the Caps, while Washington spent the night chasing the Devils, the puck and the scoreboard.
Kyle Palmieri scored the only goal the Devils would require at 7:02 of the first, and he added a second one on a New Jersey power play at 18:33 of the first. Washington had a couple of extra-man opportunities while the game was still within reach, but the Caps' vaunted power-play outfit didn't have it on this night, generating two shots on net in the 6 minutes and 12 seconds in which it held a manpower advantage.
Old friend Marcus Johansson scored early in the second to make it a 3-0 game, and the Devils doubled their lead with a three-goal third period in which a trio of bottom six New Jersey forwards - Blake Coleman, Jean-Sebastien Dea and Brian Boyle - each found the back of the net for the first time on the young season.
More often than not in this league, a goaltender that pitches a shutout is the easy choice for the game's No. 1 star. But that honor went to Palmieri on this night. Keith Kinkaid needed to make only 21 saves to earn the shutout, and few of those shots tested him. Four of Washington's 21 shots came after New Jersey had already netted its sixth goal, and the Caps managed just 11 shots on Kinkaid in the game's first 40 minutes.
When the Caps thrashed the Bruins last week, Washington netminder Braden Holtby made 25 saves to earn the shutout. He was the game's third star that night.
"They were sharp," says Caps coach Todd Reirden of the Devils. "We've got to give credit to them tonight; they were on top of their game and they were sharp. They were able to convert on their chances, and we had a couple of times we could get back in it, and we weren't able to finish when we had the chances. But they were sharper and I think their attention to details in some areas was a factor tonight."