POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Hawks 4, Caps 3 (SO)

Missed It By That Much - Starting a season-long four-game homestand at Capital One Arena on Thursday against Chicago, the Caps were seeking a fifth straight win on home ice. They didn't get it, falling to the visitors in the shootout by a 4-3 score.

What they did get was a point, and a reminder that hockey is a game of inches. Aliaksei Protas and Alex Ovechkin hit the goalpost with shots in the second period. Evgeny Kuznetsov hit the pipe with a shot in overtime, and Kuznetsov and Daniel Sprong each hit the goalpost in the shootout. If any one of those shots had gone just a hair to the inside of those posts, the story might be different.
"Just a little bit unlucky," rues Kunzetsov. "It's kind of a lottery always, right? We knew that with [Patrick] Kane they were going to have a pretty good chance to score, so we would have to at least score one. It didn't work out, so we have to practice and be better."
For the first 40 minutes, the Caps were chasing the game a bit. They fell down 1-0 in the final minute of the first when the Hawks went 200 feet in transition, taking the lead on Alex DeBrincat's backhander with a minute left in the first.
Washington wasn't pleased with its first period performance; the Hawks had the better of possession and the chances in the first 20 minutes. The Caps laid eight first-period hits - getting two each from Martin Fehervary and Nic Dowd - and made a point of seeking more physicality in the middle frame.
On the first shift of the second period, Ovechkin put a hard hit on Chicago defenseman Connor Murphy in the corner, who left the game and did not return. Seconds later, Dowd scored to even the game at 1-1, and the Caps came alive for a spell. They put seven shots on Hawks goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in the early minutes of the second, forcing him to make a stellar stop on Lars Eller at around the six-minute mark to keep the game even.
"He does so much good for our team," says Caps right wing Garnet Hathaway of Ovechkin. "That's one of them. We talked about it, we needed to get more physical. We needed to be a little bit more engaged.
"[Ovechkin] went out and he was a leader for us. That was a huge hit. I hope [Murphy] is okay, but it was one that got our bench going. It brought us into the game, grabbed you by the throat and dragged you in. And that's a testament to him."
After recording eight hits in the first period, the Caps upped that total to 14 in the middle period of the game. They were credited with 10 more hits in the third period and overtime.
Washington then went through a lull of nine minutes in which it didn't generate a shot on net in the middle of the second period - though Ovechkin hit the post occurred during that stretch - and the Hawks regained the lead on a power play, the third consecutive power play on which the Caps were scored upon, dating back to Tuesday's game in Florida.
Kuznetsov answered with a late goal in the second, tying the game at 2-2 and shrinking it to a 20-miniute contest. The Caps started the third with Hathaway in the penalty box, but he took a feed from Dowd upon exiting his temporary prison, beating Fleury on a breakaway to give the Caps their first lead of the night, 3-2 in the first minute of the third.
The Caps couldn't hold that lead. With just over eight minutes left, a breakdown in coverage allowed Chicago's Seth Jones to hop over the boards and come into the offensive zone late, finding a wide-open center lane. He scored from the high slot, tying the game and eventually sending it to overtime.
For Washington, the plus was picking up the point. The Caps have yet to go more than a game without collecting a point this season, and they've now banked 34 of them (14-4-6) in their first 24 games.
The downside was letting a third-period lead slip away for the third straight game. Up 2-0 heading into the third on Sunday in Carolina, the Caps yielded the tying goals before rallying to win on Dmitry Orlov's power-play goal with 2:55 left. Up 4-1 going to the third on Tuesday in Florida, the Caps unraveled and couldn't even earn a point, getting outshot 27-2 and outscored 4-0 in the final 20 minutes of a 5-4 loss to the Panthers.
In Thursday's game, the Caps didn't carry a lead into the third, but they were up a goal on home ice with 10 minutes left. There was a time not so long ago when that was virtually an automatic win for the Caps; over a span of three seasons from 2014-15 through 2016-17, they went 115-1-7 when owning a lead with 10 minutes left in the third.
Shoot Out The Lights - It took until game No. 24 of the regular season, but the Caps finally encountered their first shootout situation of the 2021-22 season on Thursday night. Since the shootout was introduced in the 2005-06 season, this is the third latest the Caps have had their first one of the season.
Washington's first shootout of the 2007-08 season came in the 25th game and its first shootout of the lockout-abbreviated 2012-13 season didn't happen until game No. 32, the deepest the Caps have ever gone into a season before having their first skills competition.
Thursday's shootout was only the second the Caps have ever had against the Hawks. The first one occurred on March 24, 2010 in Washington, with Mike Knuble supplying the clinching goal and Jose Theodore getting the win in a four-round affair.
Been A While - Thursday's win ended an eight-game slide for the Hawks in the District. Chicago entered the game with an 0-7-1 mark in its previous eight visits to Washington, and the Caps outscored the Hawks by a combined total of 35-12 in those eight contests.
Prior to Thursday, Chicago's most recent win here came on Jan. 10, 2006, three days before Ovechkin notched the first of his 28 career hat tricks and six days before he scored "The Goal" against the Coyotes in Phoenix.
Trent Yawney was the Hawks' bench boss in those days, and Glen Hanlon was the Caps' coach. When Kyle Calder scored the game-winner in overtime for Chicago, it made a winner of Adam Munro - one of his four career victories - in the Hawks net while Olie Kolzig absorbed the loss.
By The Numbers - Six of Washington's 10 total losses have occurred in overtime (five) or the shootout (one) … John Carlson led the Caps with 22:48 in ice time … Ovechkin and Hathaway had four shots on net each to lead Washington, and Ovechkin's 11 shot attempts led the Caps … Dowd led the Caps with six hits … Trevor van Riemsdyk led the Capitals with three blocked shots … Lars Eller won 10 of 15 face-offs (67 percent).