Leafs Top Caps, 4-2

Their start was strong, and the Capitals led for most of the first 40 minutes of Saturday's game against the Maple Leafs. But a dozen uneven minutes late in the second and early in the third ultimately proved to be their undoing in a 4-2 loss to the Leafs.

"I really liked our first two periods," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, "keeping a very dangerous hockey team to some limited chances. We didn't manage the puck [properly to start the third. In turn, we lost some of the momentum of the game and they started to tilt the ice a little bit in their favor."

That's all true, but the Caps also gave up the tying tally before the third period started, and those goals late in periods generally seem to find a way to bite the teams that give them up.
Owning a 2-1 lead late in the second, the Caps went more than 12 minutes without putting a puck on Toronto netminder Frederik Andersen. During that span, the Leafs got the tying goal from Par Lindholm - his first in the NHL - with 67 seconds left in the middle frame, and the game-winner on a Josh Leivo power-play strike early in the third.
"It was more about us, what we started getting away from in the third," says Caps center Lars Eller, who was then asked to elaborate further on what exactly the Caps got away from doing.
"Getting pucks behind them," responds Eller, "and I think we started playing with a little more risk, got a little bit sloppy around the bluelines, and then we started making some turnovers and forcing it a bit, not being as crisp. Say it how you want, we got away from our game a little bit in the third."

Washington spent too much time without the puck and too much time defending the potent Toronto attack during those 12 minutes, and Andersen had the answer for every shot he faced at five-on-five after the game's first half-minute.
Leivo's power-play goal at 6:28 of the third put the Leafs up 3-2, and it also awakened the Caps, who had a power play chance of their own just over a minute later. The Capitals weren't able to generate the equalizer then, and Andersen stymied them on several good looks later in the game, most of them coming from the Nicklas Backstrom unit on a dominant offensive-zone shift with less than five minutes remaining.
Shortly after Andersen walled off a number of Washington bids for a tying tally, Leafs center Auston Matthews continued his scorching start, scoring for the sixth straight game and netting his 10th goal of the young season to put the contest out of the Caps' reach for good, making it a 4-2 game with just 99 ticks left on the clock.
In the wake of Thursday's lopsided loss to the Devils in New Jersey, the Caps iced the same lineup for Saturday's game against the Leafs, but Reirden did make one adjustment to his forward lines, moving Chandler Stephenson up to the right side of the team's top line with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov, a move that paid instant dividends.

Eighteen seconds into the game's first period, Stephenson scored to give the Caps a 1-0 lead, getting help from both of his linemates. Ovechkin sprung Kuznetsov into Toronto ice on a 2-on-1 rush with Stephenson, who was able to put back the rebound of Kuznetsov's shot to stake Washington to an early lead.
Caps goalie Braden Holtby made that slimmest of advantages stand up through the first against the high-powered Toronto attack, stopping point blank bids from Zach Hyman, Auston Matthews and Kasperi Kapanen as the first frame wore on.
Early in the second, Kapanen tied it up at 1-1, deflecting a Ron Hainsey point shot past Holtby at 3:30. It didn't take the Caps long to get the lead back, though.
With Leafs center John Tavares in the box for tripping Ovechkin, Kuznetsov netted his fourth power-play goal in five games, putting a laser of a shot into a teacup on the short side, just above Andersen's left shoulder. The goal came just 69 seconds after Kapanen's tying marker.

Washington nursed that 2-1 lead into the latter stages of the second period, and the Caps played probably their best second period of the young season. But Toronto started to tilt the ice late in the middle frame, and the Caps yielded the dreaded late-period goal when Lindholm went to the back door and converted a fine feed from Jake Gardiner with just over a minute remaining.
Toronto seemed to use that goal for momentum at the start of the third, taking it to the Caps who couldn't seem to get possession of the puck and spent their time chasing it, never a good formula for a team playing for the third time in four nights. Shortly after Caps defenseman Michal Kempny was boxed for hi-sticking Tavares, Leivo collected a loose puck down low and pushed it past an outstretched Holtby to give the Leafs their first lead of the night. The Leafs mustered only five shots on net in the second, but scored the first and last of them.
With less than four minutes left, Backstrom and linemates T.J. Oshie and Jakub Vrana put significant pressure on the Leafs in the Toronto end, but Andersen stopped Vrana twice and Oshie just missed on two tries of his own.
"Obviously the first 10 minutes weren't very good," says Toronto coach Mike Babcock. "I don't know if we were nervous or rattled or whatever; we weren't very good. But I thought we settled in and played pretty well. We had some quality chances early, but didn't bury them. We were finally able to get it going a little bit, and I thought our third period was our best period of the night. In the end, a big two points for us."