POSTGAME NOTEBOOK - Flyers 2, Caps 1

Time Tough -Back from a winless (0-1-1) tour of Florida, the Caps opened up a two-game homestand on Saturday night against the Flyers in a key Metro Division match-up. Facing Philadelphia for the first time this season, the Caps weren't able to mount much of an attack and they suffered a third straight loss, falling 2-1.

Philadelphia scored both of its goals in the back half of the second period, and both came on offensive zone shifts where Washington had breakdowns in coverage. But the Caps did themselves no favors at the other end of the ice, either. They had only one shot on goal from inside of 30 feet from their top six forward group at 5-on-5 in the game's first 40 minutes.
Most of the pucks the Caps put on Philadelphia goaltender Martin Jones came from distance and/or came off the sticks of defensemen. Although they finished the night with a respectable total of 32 shots on goal, 15 of those came in the third period when they were already down on the scoreboard, and 10 of their total shots came on the power play.
"I guess I can really only speak for our line when we were out there," says Caps center Nic Dowd, "but I think our line specifically had a tough time getting out [of our zone]. I lost a lot of draws in the [defensive] zone tonight, which is tough; that gives up possession right away so that makes it challenging.
"I just think we weren't communicating well enough with our [defense], helping our defenseman out. It's tough; the guys go back and they've got guys on their back. They're trying to make plays to get out of the zone, and you've kind of got to be their eyes for them. The forward that is going to be low has got to help out and the other [defenseman] has got to help out, and we didn't do a good enough job.
"[The Flyers] swarm really hard. They have a hard forecheck and they turn a lot of pucks over, and they were having a lot of success extending their time down there and I think that's what hurt us. The more time you spend down there - especially against some of their top guys and their top lines - eventually something bad is going to happen, even if it's just a bad bounce."
Philly's top two lines accounted for its two goals while Washington's top six wasn't able to generate much at 5-on-5, and that was the ballgame.
"We seemed sleepy in the first and outworked in the second," assesses Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "In the third, I thought we had some game going on, and we were pushing and trying to get a win. But it's difficult to win hockey games relying on coming from behind by two goals in the third period to have to win a game. We needed to be better earlier."
Change Partners - Displeased with the lack of offensive production and the dearth of scoring chances, Laviolette juggled his lines at the start of the third, putting Daniel Sprong with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov and installing Tom Wilson on the right side of a unit with Conor Sheary and Lars Eller. Dowd's line remained intact, and the other line was comprised of rookies Hendrix Lapierre, Connor McMichael and Brett Leason.
Leason scored the Caps' lone goal in the third, sparking the team for the final 14 minutes, but it was too little, too late.
"I think we just got a little bit of a wake-up call," says Sheary of the team's third-period improvement. "Usually when the coach changes the lines, it's because he doesn't like what he's seeing and I think we kind of felt that on the bench, that we needed to maybe pick it up and try something different. I think our work ethic went up exponentially in the last period, and we outbattled them. It just wasn't there for the first 40."

Capital Youth - Washington's all-rookie line connected for the Caps' lone goal of the game in the third, and it seemed to spark the rest of the team a bit.
"I thought that in the third that line was good. I thought we got going a little bit more," says Laviolette. "It still wasn't our best; we just seemed off the mark tonight."
McMichael carried the puck into Philly ice, protecting it well, and he lugged it behind the cage before reversing it back to the front for a trailing Leason. The big winger was able to get a stick on it, lifting it to the shelf for his second goal in three games. Including an assist on McMichael's first NHL goal on Thursday night in Florida, Leason now owns a three-game point streak in his nascent NHL career.
"I think I've just been playing my game," says Leason. "I'm going hard whenever I can, just going hard on the forecheck and that generates lots of chances in the [offensive] zone, and I think there's just a lot of luck right now. The puck's going in for me.
"Obviously I've played with McMichael for a bit, and we've got some good chemistry. I kind of figured he was going to throw it back there, and I just followed behind."
Down On The Farm - The AHL Hershey Bears were at home on Saturday night, hosting the Providence Bruins in a weekend set of three games in as many days. After taking a 3-2 overtime loss at the hands of the Thunderbirds in Springfield on Friday night, the Bear were blanked at home on Saturday, falling 3-0 to the P-Bruins.
Providence scored once in the second and twice in the third in its victory, with the final tally going into a vacated Hershey net. Pheonix Copley (2-2-1) stopped 29 of the 31 shots he faced in a losing effort. Hershey fired 31 shots on Bruins goalie Jon Gillies.
The 4-2-2-1 Bears finish their busy weekend on Sunday afternoon at home when they entertain the Thunderbirds in a rematch of Friday's contest.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Caps with 23:04 in ice time … Ovevhkin led the Caps with six shots on net and 10 shot attempts … Garnet Hathaway led the Caps with six hits … Thirteen different Washington skaters combined to block a total of 20 Philadelphia shots, led by Carlson's four.