Ducks Down Caps in OT, 3-2

All things considered, the Capitals have to be pleased to have scraped a point out of Tuesday's 3-2 overtime loss to the Ducks in Anaheim. Trevor Zegras' second goal of the game in the final minute of the extra session gave Anaheim its eighth straight victory and halted Washington's own winning streak at four, but the Caps battled through varying levels of adversity to pull a point out of the game, the first of a four-game West Coast trip.

Playing their fourth game in six nights just over 24 hours after a cross-country flight, and playing with six rookies in the lineup for the first time in nearly 11 years, the Caps certainly didn't earn any points for style during a difficult and often ugly first 40 minutes. But they entered the third down only a goal and twice managed to pull even in the final frame to force overtime.
"It's tough, the loss is tough," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "The first period wasn't great, it was kind of ugly. It wasn't as bad as you think; I think the scoring chance were 3-3. It was low. There wasn't a lot of quality chances. But yet they scored, so we're kind of chasing the game the whole time and pressing the whole time. The second period was similar.
"I thought the third period was really good. We stepped on the gas, made a couple of adjustments on what we were trying to do. I thought we got it down in the offensive zone easier, and generated a lot of offense and ended up getting it to overtime and then losing, so it's just frustrating."

Entering the game, the Caps led the NHL in aggregate time with the lead, but they spent most of Tuesday's tilt playing from behind. Anaheim took a 1-0 lead on its second shot of the night.
From the half-wall in his own end of the ice, Troy Terry moved the puck to Ryan Getzlaf near the Anaheim line. Getzlaf put the puck off the opposite wall to space - high in the Washington end - where Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler was the first to get to it. When Fowler arrived on the scene, the puck was just above the left circle. Fowler wound up and one-timed it, and it went underneath Vitek Vanecek's left pad and in, catching a piece of the netminder's pad on its way through.
Fowler's goal came at 3:32 of the first period, Getzlaf recorded his 1,000th career NHL point on the play, and Terry extended his season-opening point streak to 15 straight games as well.
Just 78 seconds later, Washington appeared to pull even when Nick Jensen's seeing-eye wrist shot from the right point got through traffic and behind Ducks goaltender John Gibson. But Anaheim issued a successful coach's challenge, alleging that the Caps were offside on the play. Video review showed that Washington winger Garnet Hathaway was in just ahead of the play, and the score remained 1-0.
Vanecek made an excellent save on Getzlaf in the back half of the first, keeping the Caps within a goal. Washington wasn't great in the game's first 20 minutes, but first periods have not been the Caps' forte during the life of the four-game winning streak they brought with them to the West Coast.
On this night though, the Caps couldn't get started in the middle period, either. For the game's first 40 minutes, they appeared to be stuck in the mud. Passes were in skates rather than on the tape, and they were rarely able to get the puck moving north, rarely able to play with speed or inclined to manufacture much in the way of dangerous or sustained shifts in the offensive zone.
Vanecek made three critical stops in short succession in the penultimate minute of the second period, the first two coming on a two-on-none rush. He denied Terry and then Mason McTavish on that rush, losing his stick on the second of those stops. Still sans stick, Vanecek then thwarted Isac Lundestrom from the top of the paint, enabling the Caps to head into the third period still just a goal down.

In the back half of the second period, Laviolette flipped wingers Tom Wilson and Daniel Sprong on his top two lines. In the third, he made changes to all four lines. Washington showed more verve right from the first shift, and the Caps began to buzz around the Anaheim end.
In the sixth minute of the third, the Caps pulled even on Garrett Pilon's first NHL goal, a nice deflection of Martin Fehervary's left point shot at 5:36.

But at the exact midpoint of the third, the Ducks restored their lead on Zegras' first goal of the game. Zegras took a nifty backhand saucer pass from Sonny Milano and threaded a shot through Vanecek's pads to put the Caps down a goal again at 2-1.
Late in the third, the Caps pulled even once again when Wilson scored on another deflection of another point shot, this one originating from John Carlson at the right point with 2:32 remaining in regulation. There were some anxious moments as the Caps waited it out while officials looked at a replay to ensure that Wilson's stick wasn't above crossbar height when he tipped it home, but the goal stood up and it ultimately earned Washington a point.
Tuesday's overtime loss was Washington's fifth in a row this season, but the Caps did have some possession and some opportunities to take the extra point, until Zegras struck again at 4:14 of the extra session, putting a shot to the shelf from the inside of the left circle.
"I think it was a good point, based on how we started the game," reflects Carlson. "That's the bigger thing. However many guys we've got out [of the lineup], we've still got bodies and guys that can make a huge difference in the game at any time. Maybe after the first or the second we'd have liked a point, but coming into it that's never our expectation."