POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Coyotes 4, Caps 1

Opportunity Knocks Once, Then The Door Slams Shut - Heading into Sunday's finale of their five-game homestand against the Arizona Coyotes, the Caps had an opportunity to take a couple of points from a road weary team, a team playing on the shortest turnaround - just 22 hours - allowed by the NHL's collective bargaining agreement. It was also an opportunity for the Caps to finish the homestand on a winning and high note; a win would leave them at 3-1-1 for the homestand while a regulation loss would leave a decidedly less appealing 2-2-1 mark to show for those five games in the District.

The Caps could never get started on Sunday. They went shorthanded in the game's second minute and never owned a lead for the second straight game. They also scored exactly one goal for the second straight game, losing 4-1 to the Coyotes, who snapped a three-game slide (0-2-1) with the first victory of their four-game road trip.
One of the tried and true tenets of going up against a less rested team is to make them feel the body, play physically against them, and make them play and chase the puck in their own end as much as possible. Washington wasn't able to achieve any of those objectives.
"Certainly they didn't have the best schedule coming in," says Caps defenseman John Carlson, "and we didn't take advantage of it. We wanted to come out hot and start fast against a team like that that's got to travel and played [Saturday]. We didn't do it. It was the perfect period for them, really. It was slow and not really too much happening either way. It let them recoup and come at us hard."
Only four different Caps were credited with hits in the first period, and on one of their few sustained stays in the Arizona end late in the first, the Caps took the penalty that led to the Coyotes power-play goal, a goal that put Washington down 1-0 late in the first. Arizona looked like the fresher team all afternoon, and they handed the Caps their second straight regulation loss on home ice.
Killing With Kindness -For the second straight game, the Caps played even against their opponent at five-on-five but lost the special teams battle and thus, the hockey game.
Washington has allowed a power-play goal against in 12 of its 16 games this season, and it has done so in four straight games and in 11 of its last 13. The Caps have allowed multiple power-play goals in five games this season, including each of the last two. They'll start this week's road trip with an abysmal 71.7% kill rate, the third-worst in the league.
"I think there are some ways of evaluating it that it's getting better," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, "but it's not getting it done. You can continue to look at it different ways, and we have some different personnel in that situation and a different way of going about things on the penalty kill, but right now it's costing us games. We can't expect to win when you're giving up penalty kill goals at the rate we are now."
On The Road Again - Instead of hitting the road on the heels of a 3-1-1 homestand, the Caps will lug a two-game losing streak with them as they embark upon a weeklong road trip against formidable foes. The Caps will start the trip with a set of back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday at Minnesota and Winnipeg, respectively, before moving on and up into altitude for a Friday night date with the Colorado Avalanche in Denver. The Caps will get a breather for two days before finishing the journey in Montreal next Monday.
The combined home ice record of Washington's four opponents on its upcoming road trip is 21-7-5.
Who Needs Rest? - Coyotes goaltender Darcy Kuemper played Sunday's game on zero days rest; he was in net a night earlier when Arizona absorbed a 4-0 loss at the hands of the Penguins in Pittsburgh. Having played his team's road trip opener in Philadelphia on Thursday as well, Kuemper was manning the crease for the third time in four nights.
The Caps weren't able to do much against Kuemper, and a lot of that was on them. But credit to Kuemper too, whose numbers are a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the league, when it comes to playing on short rest.
Including Sunday's win over Washington, Kuemper has now played 10 games - eight of them starts - on zero days rest. He owns a 7-2-0 record, two shutouts, a 1.62 GAA and a .946 save pct.
With starting goaltender Antti Raanta sidelined with a lower body injury and with backup Hunter Miska still untested at the NHL level, Kuemper helped the Coyotes to a couple of big points on Sunday.
Down On The Farm -The AHL Hershey Bears spent Sunday night in Syracuse where they took a 7-2 beating from the Crunch. Hershey fell behind 3-0 in the first frame and was never really in the contest.
Both Bears goals came on the power play, and they came less than a minute apart late in the second period, cutting the Crunch's lead from 5-0 to 5-2.
Mike Sgarbossa notched his sixth goal of the season at 18:08 with help from Lucas Johansen and Riley Barber. Fifty-one seconds later, Barber netted his fifth of the season with help from Johansen and Garrett Pilon.
Ilya Samsonov started and went the distance for the Bears in goal, stopping 23 of 30 shots as his record dropped to 3-5-0 on the season.
The 7-8-0-1 Bears are idle until Friday when they host the Cleveland Monsters at Giant Center.
By The Numbers - Dmitry Orlov led the Caps with 26:30 in ice time and three blocked shots … Matt Niskanen led the Caps with six shots on net and nine shot attempts … Niskanen and Alex Ovechkin led the way with five hits each … Travis Boyd won all three of his face-offs, and Lars Eller won nine of 14 (64%).