Coyotes Stun Caps, 3-2

Washington's losing streak stretched to four straight (0-2-2) on Saturday night at Capital One Arena, spoiling what should have been a joyous night in which Caps captain Alex Ovechkin scored his 787th career goal to move ahead of Gordie Howe (786) for the NHL record for most goals with a single franchise. But Arizona winger Nick Ritchie had other ideas, scoring the game-tying and game-winning goal less than 10 minutes apart in the third period to hand the Caps a stunning 3-2 setback.

Ritchie netted the game-winner with just 35.4 seconds left in the game, a contest in which Washington owned a two-goal lead early in the third. Saturday's loss was the Caps' fourth in succession, and in each of the four games Washington held the lead past the midpoint of the second period.
"There was breakdowns from a defensive standpoint," laments Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "On all the goals there's things that we have to do better. We could attack more, first of all. And then secondly, when it does come to playing defense, it's got to be the priority."
Missing more than a handful of key players, the Caps have played well defensively through much of their current skid, but they've been scuffling to light the lamp with regularity at the other end of the ice. Saturday's game marked the sixth straight game in which Washington was limited to two or fewer goals, excluding empty-net tallies.
"It's kind of been the same story for the last four games where we're not scoring a lot of goals," adds Laviolette. "And so if you're not scoring a lot of goals, you've got to pay attention to defense, and it needed to be better in the third."
Ovechkin's history-making tally came just ahead of the midpoint of the middle period, and it came on the Capitals' third man advantage opportunity, and the captain's third power-play shot on net of the evening. The Caps managed some good zone time on that third power play, but they had three shots blocked and two that missed the mark before Ovechkin finally found the range just after a smooth zone entry in which all five Caps possessed the puck in a matter of seconds.
Playing his first game as a Capital, Sonny Milano carried the puck into Arizona territory, leaving it for Conor Sheary just inside the line. Sheary bumped it off the half wall for Anthony Mantha at the right point, and he fed it across to Trevor van Riemsdyk at the left point. From there, van Riemsdyk dished it perfectly to a locked and loaded Ovechkin, who got all of it, pounding a one-timer past Coyotes goalie Karel Vejmelka from his left dot office at 8:55 of the second period.
On Thursday night in Detroit - where Howe scored many of his 786 career goals with the Red Wings - Ovechkin tied Howe with the only Washington goal in a 3-1 loss, and he moved past Mr. Hockey in his very next game.
"Obviously it's a huge moment," says Ovechkin. "The last couple games, those are big milestones and unfortunately we didn't get the win. But it's a special moment, and it's nice to have both my kids and my wife, all the fans and my parents watched in Moscow. It's a special moment."
For the game's first 40 minutes, Ovechkin's was the only goal on either side. Early in the third, the Caps provided goaltender Darcy Kuemper with an insurance tally, cashing in on an Arizona turnover deep in their end of the ice. Shayne Gostisbehere's feed from behind his own net went awry, allowing Mantha to collect it in front, whirl and spin a backhander past Vejmelka for a 2-0 Washington lead at 3:23 of the third.
Just over three minutes later, the Coyotes halved the advantage when defenseman Josh Brown abandoned his right point spot to pull the puck out of a pile in the slot and fire it home at 6:33 of the third, making it a 2-1 game. The Caps issued an unsuccessful challenge for goaltender interference, and they killed off the ensuing Arizona power play.
Ritchie's first goal of the game came at 9:45, but play wasn't stopped right away. The horn sounded to halt play seconds after that, and a video review quickly showed that Ritchie's shot from the slot eluded Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper on the glove side and crossed all the way over the goal line, tying the game at 2-2.
The Caps had chances to regain the lead after that tying goal, but van Riemsdyk wasn't able to convert into a yawning cage from a tight angle, and Vejmelka made a good save on Sheary at the right post off a setup from Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Those loomed larger when Ritchie struck yet again in the final minute of regulation, burying a puck that slipped through Kuemper on Barrett Hayton's original shot, a shot from the slot off a 3-on-2 rush at an inopportune time of the game.
"We need to finish games," says Mantha. "We need to play 60 [minutes]. Right now, we're obviously not doing it. We get the lead, we're working hard to get the lead and then they score one, and we're kind of on our heels and we just let ourself get maybe outshot or something at the end of the period."
Arizona's victory came two nights after the Coyotes absorbed a 7-2 shellacking from Dallas in the finale of a four-game homestand. Facing the Caps in the opener of a 14-game road trip - tied for the longest in NHL history - the Coyotes got the journey off to a two-point start.
"We arrived here, and again we're down 2-0," says Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny. "And we just stayed with it. We kept going and scored big goals and found a way ti win."
The Caps' four losses have come in a stunning span of six nights following the loss of both John Carlson and T.J. Oshie to lower body injuries a week ago tonight in Nashville, the night of Washington's most recent victory. The Caps lost another player tonight when stalwart defenseman Dmitry Orlov was lost to a lower body injury for the final 40 minutes of the game.
But it's not the injuries that are keeping the Caps from closing out contests successfully.
"These injuries don't have anything to do with the game tonight," emphasizes Laviolette. "We had a game, we were in control of it, we were up 2-0, and we needed to bury it, and we didn't. That's' on us. Injuries are a part of it, and there's things that we could have done on the ice to win the third period, or be better in the third period."