For 40 minutes on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena, the Caps and Rangers hooked up in a tight game, one in which both teams found time and space hard to come by, and in which both teams missed the mark on some good scoring opportunities.
The Caps carried a 3-2 lead into the third period, but starting just ahead of the midpoint of the frame, it got away from them, and then some.
The Rangers suddenly found the range, scoring five unanswered goals – only one of them into a vacant net – in a tick under 10 minutes to hand the Caps a 7-3 setback heading into the three-day holiday break.
Ex-Capital Taylor Raddysh tied it at 8:10 of the third, and 68 seconds later, Alexis Lafreniere put the Rangers up by a goal. At 13:43 of the third – four seconds after a television timeout – Vincent Trocheck supplied the dagger, giving the Rangers the first multi-goal lead of the evening. An Artemi Panarin empty-net goal and another Trocheck tally with 1:51 left ended the onslaught.
Until Tuesday’s loss, the Caps had been a perfect 16-0-0 when leading after the second period in 2025-26.
“I don’t think it was a situation where we go into the third and lose all of this momentum and we’re back on our heels and we’re giving them a bunch of chances,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “I just think it’s a couple of plays, and then you’re chasing it from there.”
The best thing the Caps did in the first frame was to snuff out a hi-sticking double minor on Ryan Leonard. When the penalty was whistled at 7:49, the Rangers had yet to test Caps goaltender Logan Thompson. Washington limited the visitors to just two shots on the power play.
The Caps had a 5-0 lead in shots on net when the penalty was called, but it was a deceiving advantage. The average length of those five shots was 68 feet. Two of them came from neutral ice and two more came from the point. Washington finished the first with six shots on net, and the Caps were held without a 5-on-5 shot on goal over the final 15 minutes and 17 seconds of the first.
Yet, from a possession standpoint, the Caps were dominant in the game’s initial period. The Caps controlled over 70 percent of shot attempts at 5-on-5, but none of their last 11 tries hit the mark; seven were blocked and four missed the mark, including an Aliaksei Protas shot on a semi-breakaway that hit the right post.
Raddysh bit the hand that once fed him, scoring the only goal of the period at 14:59 when he converted a Jonny Brodzinski cross-ice feed off the rush on New York’s first 5-on-5 shot on goal of the game. The Rangers managed only four first-period shots on net; they had seven misses and seven bids blocked.
But in the first minute of the middle period, John Carlson finished off a pretty passing sequence with a perfectly placed snipe of a shot that squared the score at 1-1 just 23 seconds after puck drop.
Soon after the Carlson goal, Leonard had a breakaway opportunity, but his backhander went over the net. He drew a penalty on the play – it could have easily been a penalty shot – but the Caps weren’t able to convert on the power play; Alex Ovechkin air-mailed a shot over the net on a glorious opportunity from in tight on that power play.
Ahead of the midpoint of the middle period, the Caps got another man-advantage opportunity and this time made good, but only upon further reflection. It initially appeared as though New York netminder Igor Shesterkin committed robbery on Dylan Strome, snaring the Washington center’s back door shot with his glove. But a quick video review revealed the catching glove was behind the goal line, and Strome’s goal lifted the Caps to their first lead of the night at 8:40.
Less than three minutes later, New York answered that power-play goal with one of its own, a Will Cuylle back door tap-in at 11:14.
Fifty-seven seconds later, the Caps got the lead back when Sonny Milano put a soft shot on Shesterkin. The rebound went right to Protas, who buried that pass-off-pad shot to make it a 3-2 game at 12:11.
The Caps’ inability to convert on several golden earlier looks that could have resulted in a larger lead early came back to haunt them in this one. The Caps came up empty in the third while New York scored four times in 10 shots on Thompson, adding the empty-netter as well.
The Caps head into the holiday break with one win in their last seven games (1-4-2).
“I guess converting on our chances seems like the main one that keeps coming up,” says Strome, asked what area of their game needs the most focus right now. “We have chances to score, and push the lead into two or three. And it feels like during that [hot] stretch [in late November], we were doing that and getting goals from all over the place.
“And now, it just hasn't been there the last couple, but that's hockey sometimes, and we'll find a way to bounce through it. This team not going to go lightly. I think no one's happy with that, and the bad taste in our mouth for the break. But like I said, the break is coming at a good time, so just move on and get ready for after the break.”
The first three New York goals of the third period came on five shots in a span of 5 minutes and 33 seconds.
“I was happy for the players,” says New York coach Mike Sullivan. “They’ve worked so hard to try to generate more offense; it’s nice to see the puck go in for them. I thought the first period was a really good period; I thought they outplayed us in the second period. Shesty made some big saves for us, and I thought we responded really well in the third.”
The Caps will have to sit with this one for the next three days. They’ll take an early Saturday morning flight to Newark, have a morning skate there, and take on the Devils the same night, the first of 22 games in 41 days.
“I think every team in this League is playing a lot of games in a condensed schedule with the Olympics, and so it's no excuse, but we've been playing a lot of hockey,” says Caps forward Connor McMichael. “It catches up, too. I think we’ve got to enjoy this break as much as possible and reset and come back a lot better than we were tonight.”
