Caps Take 5-2 Setback in Game 2

One team looks structured, the other looks scattered. One team looks more than willing and able to put in a full 60-minute effort up and down its lineup while the other has passengers and seems to be looking for and taking shortcuts and shifts off.

The structured team with the 60-minute work ethic is the New York Islanders, and they took a 2-0 series lead over the beleaguered Capitals with a 5-2 victory on Friday night in Toronto, in Game 2 of the first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series between the two teams.

"We're playing to our identity," says Islanders coach Barry Trotz. "We've got a good, mature group that doesn't get fazed. [The Caps] got a goal early off a little bit of a bad carom off the boards, and it didn't faze our bench. That's the great thing about our group. We just keeping doing what we do."

The Caps got a couple of goals from Alex Ovechkin, and they managed another good start to the game, only to fizzle as they weren't able to sustain that level of play over the full 60 minutes, a recurring theme since before the bubble was born.

Two games into the series, deuces are wild. The Caps have scored two goals in each game. Two different Caps players - T.J. Oshie and Alex Ovechkin - each have two-goal games, and they're the only two players to find the back of the net. And the Caps are down two games.

"We've shown it in the beginning of games," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, of his team's sporadic play. "Tonight again, just look at the first few shifts. We put pucks behind their defense, we get in on the forecheck, we hang onto pucks, and we're able to get the results we need to. We have to consistently do that for 60 minutes, and then we're going to get contributions from everybody. But that has to happen more often."

After a good opening shift in the attack zone from Lars Eller's line, the Caps took the lead on the very next shift, before the game was a minute old. From the left point, Tom Wilson rolled the puck around the back of the New York net. Ovechkin beat Isles pivot Casey Cizikas to the puck, booted it to his stick blade, and beat goaltender Semyon Varlamov with a backhander at the 56-second mark of the first.

Washington also managed to snuff out a pair of New York power plays in the first, and Braden Holtby was sturdy in the first 20 minutes as well, with the Isles tilting the ice a bit in the second half of the frame.

The Isles' tilting of the ice was a portend of things to come. Two days after they lit up the Caps for four goals in less than 13 minutes of playing time, the Islanders struck for three goals in less than four minutes early in the second to take control of the contest. The flailing Capitals managed to score one of their own in the midst of that trio of enemy tallies.

A muffed breakout by Michal Kempny led to unnecessary defensive zone time, which led to a hi-sticking penalty on Nic Dowd, which resulted in a Nick Leddy power-play goal at 2:56 of the second, tying the game at 1-1.

With New York bringing the heat in the Washington end again, Holtby stopped a couple Cal Clutterbuck shots in quick succession, both of them from in tight. But he got no help; the Caps weren't able to cleanly collect and clear the puck, and coverage was lacking, too. That led to a Matt Martin tap-in from the top of the paint at 5:01, and a 2-1 New York lead.

Just over 90 seconds later, the Caps got even when Ovechkin deflected a Brenden Dillon point shot past Varlamov, but that bit of prosperity was short-lived.

New York center Brock Nelson picked Jakub Vrana's pocket at the Islanders line, and Nelson tore off on a breakaway, beating Holtby to restore the lead for the Isles just 15 seconds after Ovechkin's tying tally. That gaffe earned Vrana a seat on the bench for the remainder of the middle period.

Nelson's goal was all the offense the Isles would need. The Caps still haven't managed to get their game to the next level after last week's round robin games, and they weren't able to do so in the second half of Game 2, either.

The Islanders benefited from each of the game's first five power plays, and the Caps finally managed their first extra-man chance early in the third. All it did was take two minutes off the clock; Washington wasn't able to sustain any time in the New York end, let alone get set up.

"We just tried to do too much," laments Ovechkin. "We made a couple of turnovers and obviously we know we all have to play better."

A subsequent extra-man opportunity produced more zone time and a couple of looks, but a John Carlson pass to Ovechkin was shanked, as was a later Ovechkin shot bid from in tight with an open net yawning. Those uncharacteristic misplays from two of the team's best players derailed the best of Washington's third-period chances to get even.

"It was a bad pass by [Evgeny Kuznetsov]," joked Ovechkin on the podium after the game, with Kuznetsov sitting next to him.

The joke met the same fate as the shot.

"No, I just missed the net," the Caps captain continued. "Shit happens."

Late in the third, the Caps were hemmed in their own end for a lengthy stretch, pressured relentlessly by the New York forecheck and completely unable to put together a string of passes that would enable them to even exit their zone, let along muster an equalizing marker. After a quick change and a regroup in neutral ice, New York stuck a dagger in the Caps with a Cal Clutterbuck goal with 2:46 left.

"We're just trying to stay on top of them and not give them any room to come at us," says Clutterbuck, "because obviously of the amount of talent they have. We're just trying to get over the top of people, stay in the fight, and stay aggressive."

An Anders Lee empty-netter in the game's penultimate minute accounted for the 5-2 final, putting the Caps in a 0-2 ditch in the series with Game 3 looming on short rest for both sides, at noon on Sunday.

"It's the focus," says Reirden. "It's [being] mentally and physically sharp for 60 minutes. And if you're not going to do that against a team like this, then you're going to have a difficult time having success."