Roman Josi’s 5-on-3 power-play goal early in the third period proved to be the difference as the Caps dropped a 3-2 decision to the Predators on Sunday night at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Josi’s goal – the first 5-on-3 goal against yielded by Washington in the Spencer Carbery coaching era – gave Nashville a 3-1 lead at the time.
Ethen Frank brought the Caps back within one with a power-play strike midway through the third period, but Washington was unable to find the equalizer as it again failed to string together consecutive victories, something it has not achieved since the early days of December.
Until Josi’s shot hit the twine, the Caps had been the only team in the NHL not to yield a 5-on-3 power-play goal against in the last three seasons.
Both Washington and Nashville scored on a two-man advantage in Sunday’s game, and both also struck for a more conventional 5-on-4 power play goal. The difference was at 5-on-5, where, despite some lengthy offensive zone shifts and a couple of good looks that rang iron, the Caps weren’t able to solve Nashville netminder Justus Annunen, who won his third consecutive start.
Nashville’s Cole Smith scored the game’s only 5-on-5 tally early in the third period, snapping a 1-1 deadlock that stood for more than 27 minutes.
“I thought the 5-on-5 was fine; I thought we controlled the majority of the play,” says Carbery. “The only thing I would say is we just have to create more dangerous looks. Our expected goals for controlling 5-on-5 play is like 2.1; we’ve got to get that up to four. If you’re going to control play, we just have to make a few more plays, threaten a little bit more, get a little bit more dangerous on the inside, make a few more individual [plays], beat a guy off the wall, take a puck to the inside, make that last pass through a guy’s triangle to turn that 2.1 expected goals into four, just because we’re not scoring at a high rate at 5-on-5 right now. So, we’re going to have to find a way to create a little more dangerous look.”
Friday night in Chicago, the Caps killed off a lengthy 5-on-3 Hawks power play in the first period, a key moment in the contest. Two nights later in Nashville, the Caps were on the other side of a lengthy 5-on-3 when the Predators ran into some penalty trouble in the first frame, giving the Caps a two-man advantage of 104 seconds in duration.
Twenty-five seconds later, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin drilled home his 20th goal of the season to stake Washington to a 1-0 lead at 5:56. Taking a tee-up feed from John Carlson, Ovechkin fired a one-timer home from the top of the left circle, reaching the 20-goal level for the 21st consecutive season.
Only Gordie Howe (22) has had more 20-goal seasons in the NHL than Ovechkin, who is the only player in NHL history to start his career with 21 consecutive seasons of 20 or more goals. With two power-play points in Sunday’s game, Ovechkin now has 614 power-play points, surpassing former Capital Phil Housley (612) for ninth place on the NHL’s all-time list.
Nashville’s own power-play specialist squared the score with the Preds on the man advantage later in the first. Stamkos struck on a one-timer from the left dot at 13:15, netting his 601st career goal to tie Jari Kurri for 21st on the NHL’s all-time ledger. Stamkos’ goal was his 233rd career power play marker, pushing him past former Capital Dino Ciccarelli (232) for 10th place all-time in extra-man tallies.
Already playing without defenseman Jakob Chychrun (illness), the Caps lost the services of center Justin Sourdif early in the second period when he took a puck up high and went off for repairs.
Despite the absences, the Caps turned in a strong middle period in terms of offensive zone possession at 5-on-5. They had some dominant shifts and managed to out-change the Preds on a couple of occasions, but to no avail. Connor McMichael and Anthony Beauvillier both bounced shots off the iron in the middle frame.
“It feels like we controlled the puck for a ton of the time in the second and we were rolling lines over and just couldn't find one to capitalize on,” says Caps center Dylan Strome.
Nashville opened the third on a carryover power play, which Washington was able to kill off. But less than a minute later, Smith struck from the slot of the rush, firing a hard shot over Charlie Lindgren’s shoulder when it appeared as though Caps defenseman Matt Roy had blunted Smith’s stick.
“It's a tough read,” says Lindgren. “Obviously he's battling there with Roy, and a lot of times in a position like that, they're not able to get a lot of wood on that. And he was able to put it under the bar. But, yeah, unfortunate.”
Just over two minutes later, with Nashville enjoying a two-man advantage of its own, Josi fired a one-timer past Lindgren – who made a couple big stops earlier in the 5-on-3 – to give the Preds a two-goal lead, 3-1 at 3:29.
Ovechkin set up Frank for a power-play goal from the slot at 9:08, his second goal in as many games on the Mentors’ Trip. Frank’s goal came on the one-year anniversary of his first NHL goal, which came in the same building in his second NHL game.
“It means a lot,” says Frank, of scoring a couple of goals with his dad David in attendance. “It’s always fun to score goals, but especially with dad in the building. It’s his first time probably seeing me play without my mom in a long time. So yeah, it's a lot of fun to have him here and have him see what we go through on a day-to-day [basis].”
Frank’s goal was as close as the Caps could get. Aliaksei Protas had a good look from the slot later on, but Annunen made the save to lift Nashville to its 15th win in 23 games (15-8-0), moving the Preds into 10th place in the Western Conference standings, just two points south of Los Angeles for the second wild card playoff berth.
