Isles Down Caps, 4-3

Washington's penalty killing unit has been extremely good of late, and the Caps' shorthanded outfit was all that and more on Tuesday against the New York Islanders at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. But the Caps took four minor penalties in the second period of the game, short-circuiting whatever chance they might have had to grab a lead in the contest.

Twice the Caps came back to tie the game, but they'll leave town with no points. The Islanders broke open a 2-2 game with a pair of goals 43 seconds apart early in the third period, and they skated off with a 4-3 win over the Caps, their third in a row.

Each side had four power plays on the night, and two of Washington's opportunities came in the final five minutes of the game when they needed a goal to even the score. Despite all the power plays on both sides, all seven goals in the game were scored at five-on-five.

Caps goalie Braden Holtby fell on the sword after the loss.

"There were three goals tonight that I could have stopped," rues Holtby, "and it really comes down to that."

The Islanders got on the board first, scoring off a rush in a rebound situation. Nikolai Kulemin carried into the Washington zone on the right side of the ice, and he managed to snap a shot off from the right circle. Holtby made the stop, but didn't put the rebound where he wanted. Before he could locate the puck, Isles forward Cal Clutterbuck tucked it behind him for a 1-0 New York lead at 8:02 of the first.

Washington pulled even just over five minutes later. Justin Williams and Evgeny Kuznetsov, respectively, were denied on a pair of excellent chances down low. But the Caps persevered on that shift, and were able to get on the board when Williams deposited the rebound of an Alex Ovechkin shot from center point, tying the game at 1-1 at 13:24 of the first.

The Caps drew the game's first power play soon after Williams' goal, but weren't able to use the opportunity to take the lead.

New York earned an early power play in the second period, and right after the Caps killed it off, they were in the midst of a dominant shift in the Islanders zone. It was so dominant that they were able to effect a partial change of personnel. But Ovechkin touched the puck just inside the New York line right before Marcus Johansson made it to the bench, and the Caps were whistled for too many men on the ice.

That turned out to be the first of those four second-period penalties. And while the Caps killed them all successfully, they used up plenty of energy doing so and left momentum for the Islanders to grab during that stretch. Meanwhile, New York regained the lead late in the middle frame.

The Islanders worked the puck around the perimeter on the left wing wall, with Alan Quine and Thomas Hickey exchanging the puck near the bottom of the left circle. Hickey spotted Andrew Ladd lurking at the back door post and threaded a feed in that direction. Ladd had time to settle the puck and bang it home for a 2-1 New York lead at 14:03 of the second.

Washington squared the score once again early in the third period. Kuznetsov carried into the Islanders' zone and dished to Williams on his left. New York netminder Jaroslav Halak stopped that shot, but the rebound kicked right out to Ovechkin in the slot. The Caps' captain buried it with a backhander to make it a brand new game at 1:17.

"I think a few games ago, our line had a talk," says Williams after his line produced three of Washington's four goals in the game. "So far, we've generated more than what we had been doing. So that's a positive. We're talking, we want to get better, and we know we should be able to have more chances than the opposition when we're on the ice. We should be better, and we're trending that way now."

Just over three minutes later, New York took its third lead of the night, the one it would not relinquish. Ladd made a neat redirection of a Quine pass, beating Holtby at 4:41 with an underhanded, non-scoresheet assist to Isles defenseman Johnny Boychuk. Seconds before Ladd scored, Boychuk took Caps winger Tom Wilson out of the play, delivering a short, sharp shot to Wilson's head that left the winger reeling in the corner while play continued.

"I thought there was an absolute penalty on it," says Caps coach Barry Trotz of that sequence, "but [the officials] didn't call it. So you've just got to play on.

"To me, that sort of unraveled us a little bit. They scored [again] shortly after that. We had an opportunity to go on the power play; it wasn't called and they score."

Forty-three seconds after Ladd's second goal, Anders Lee collected a missed exchange at the New York line and barreled in on a breakaway, beating Holtby to give the Islanders a two-goal cushion.

Lee's goal appeared to vex Holtby more than the others.

"That's just a move that has beaten me a few times this year," says Holtby. "You can deal with different goals here and there, but when it's a pattern like that and I haven't fixed it yet, that's frustrating. It's something I'm going to have to really work on to figure out a way, because at that time of the game - a big moment - you need to be sharp. You can't let in goals like that."

Andre Burakovsky scored a rush goal with 6:55 left, going to the net and converting a feed from Matt Niskanen along the right wing wall. That goal pulled Washington to within one once again, but the two late power-play chances failed to produce the equalizer, sending the Capitals to their third loss in their last four games (1-2-1).

"I don't think it should have gotten to that point, to be honest," says Williams, when queried about the late power play chances. "I don't think we played well, I don't think we forechecked well, I don't think we talked well, and maybe that was because of the break. Whatever it was, we certainly weren't sharp tonight and we weren't sharp enough to win."