POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Leafs 4, Caps 3 (SO)

The One That Got Away - In each of their first two meetings against the Maple Leafs this season, the Caps fell down by multiple goals early and needed to use both goaltenders to get through the games, both of which were losses. On Sunday night, the Caps faced a Toronto team that was playing on the road for the second time in as many nights and the third time in four nights.

Washington had a good game plan with which to take on the high-powered Leafs, and it executed that plan to a tee for more than 50 minutes. But despite their road weariness, the Leafs rallied late to force overtime, and they won the game 4-3 in a seven-round shootout.
Each team scored in the first frame, and each team had a power-play goal wiped off the board by a successful coach's challenge in the second period, sending them to the third all even at 1-1.
Early in the third, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin left the game after he was tripped on a breakaway by Leafs goaltender Erik Kallgren. Ovechkin missed the net on his shot, then tripped over Kallgren's paddle and went careening into the corner boards.
On Monday morning, the Caps announced that Ovechkin is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Soon after Ovechkin's departure from Sunday night's game, the Caps scored a pair of quick goals from Lars Eller and Marcus Johansson, respectively, to forge a 3-1 lead over the Leafs, who seemed to be running on fumes in the third. Washington held the Maple Leafs without a shot on net for a span of 7 minutes and 40 seconds in the third period, and the three shots the Leafs mustered in the final frame before that drought all came from a distance of 40 or more feet from the Washington net.
But Toronto was able to take advantage of a late defensive lapse from the Caps, pulling to within one on an Ilya Mikheyev goal with 7:24 remaining in regulation. After Toronto pulled Kallgren for an extra attacker, veteran Leafs center Jason Spezza scored on the 6-on-5 sequence with just under a minute remaining in regulation.
Overtime didn't settle anything, and then Alex Kerfoot won it for Toronto in the bottom of the seventh frame of the skills competition.
The Caps were minutes away from securing two points, but they were forced to settle for a single point instead.
"We'll watch some video, watch some video of 5-on-6," says Caps winger T.J. Oshie. "Just some things that we've got to clean up. I think we just didn't expect ourselves to give away a two-goal lead to a team that played [the previous] night, no matter how good they are or how offensive they are. It's unfortunate, and tough to sleep on that one. But we'll come back to the rink tomorrow and get back to work."
In the chase for third place in the Metropolitan Division standings, the Caps trail Pittsburgh by a single point, and they hold one game in hand on the Penguins. The Capitals finish the season with three games in four nights, starting with Tuesday night's home ice finale against the Islanders at Capital One Arena.
Seventy For Carly - With his assist on Lars Eller's goal in the third period, Caps defenseman John Carlson recorded his 70th point of the season (16 goals, 54 assists). Carlson has now recorded three seasons with 70 or more points in his career, and he becomes just the 18th defenseman in NHL history to record three or more seasons with 70 or more points.
Century City - With their single standings point earned on Sunday night against Toronto, the Capitals hit the century mark on the button with three games remaining. This is the sixth time in the last eight seasons that Washington has reached the 100-point plateau, and the Caps are the only team in the NHL to do so.
The Caps failed to reach 100 points only in the two previous seasons, both of which were abbreviated because of the pandemic. Washington was on a pace to record 106 points in 2019-20 and was on pace for 112 points in 2020-21, if those seasons had been full 82-game campaigns.
Had the Caps been able to play out those seasons and had they been able to hit triple-digit point totals, they would have joined the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens as just the third team in NHL history to achieve eight straight seasons with 100 or more points. The Wings rolled up a dozen straight seasons with at least 100 points from 1999-00 to 2011-12 and the Habs had an eight-season run from 1974-75 to 1981-82.
Washington is currently the eighth-place team in the Eastern Conference, and all eight teams have 100 or more points. It's the first time in League history that all eight playoff teams in the same conference have eclipsed the 100-point barrier.
Down On The Farm - The AHL Hershey Bears concluded their 2021-22 regular season slate on Sunday when they suffered a 5-3 home ice loss to the Syracuse Crunch at Giant Center.
Following a scoreless first frame, Brett Leason staked the Bears to a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 4:57 of the second. Mike Sgarbossa and Garrett Pilon assisted on Leason's sixth goal of the season.
Syracuse struck for one in the second and two in the third to take a 3-1 lead before Pilon made it a 3-2 game with his 17th goal of the season, Sgarbossa assisting.
But just 24 seconds later, the Crunch restored its two-goal cushion. Jake Massie netted the Bears third goal of the game and final marker of the regular season at 15:54 of the third. Sgarbossa and Tobias Geisser assisted on Massie's second goal of the season.
Pheonix Copley stopped 21 of 25 shots in the Hershey nets, and he finishes the season with a record of 18-12-5.
The 34-32-6-4 Bears open their first-round Calder Cup playoff series - a best-of-three affair - against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Friday on the road, at Mohegan Sun Arena.
By The Numbers - Carlson led the Capitals with 26:53 in ice time and with 11 shot attempts … Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov led Washington with four shots on net each … Nic Dowd and Tom Wilson had six hits each to lead the Caps … Trevor van Riemsdyk had two blocked shots to lead the Caps … Eller won seven of 11 draws (64 percent).