POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Leafs 7, Caps 3

Strange Victory, Strange Defeat - Putting a lopsided beating on an opponent in the NHL can sometimes have a lingering effect on the team doing the beating. Nothing is ever easy in the NHL, but on rare occasions it can look that way when one team is in the midst of an off night defensively against another team with offensive firepower.

Two nights after they put a 9-2 pounding on the Philadelphia Flyers in the District, the Caps found the tables turned on them in a 7-3 loss to the Maple Leafs in the opener of a five-game road trip in Toronto.
Things looked easy for the Caps against Philly on Tuesday in Washington, and that can lead to some bad habits creeping into a team's game, something Caps coach Peter Laviolette alerted his team to in the wake of that thumping of the Flyers on Tuesday.
"I said it as soon as the game was over, 'Tonight was a night to create bad habits,'" says the Caps' bench boss. "And so we've got to get back to playing with some energy and some execution and some attitude, and inside of that there is a lot of systems play that has to be better as well, so there is no question that we were way too loose."
One need only look above the Caps in the Metro Division standings at the Pittsburgh Penguins to see some recent evidence of this phenomenon. In a March 27 home game against Detroit, the Pens put an 11-2 thrashing on the Wings, a win that left the Pens with a 9-3-1 mark over a span of a dozen games.
But in the aftermath of that loss, the Pens went into a tailspin that enabled the Caps to close to within three points of Pittsburgh. The Penguins went 2-5-1 in their next eight games - with one win coming in overtime and the other in a shootout - but their win on Thursday coupled with the Caps' loss to the Leafs gives the Pens a five-point cushion on Washington in the Metro Division standings.
The Capitals looked outmatched from the outset on Thursday at Scotiabank Arena, and although starting goalie Ilya Samsonov was able to keep the Caps within striking distance for the first half of the contest, the wheels came off in the middle of the middle period when the Leafs erupted for four goals in a span of just over six minutes.
Thirteen seconds after John Carlson scored a 4-on-4 goal to cut the Toronto lead to 2-1, the Maple Leafs struck for four goals in just over six minutes, with the first two of them coming less than a minute apart, and in the same 4-on-4 sequence in which Carlson scored.
"Obviously it was a big goal there by John," says Caps center Nicklas Backstrom. "We got it back to 2-1 and then they scored two or three quick ones there. That's tough, especially when they have that 4-1 or 5-1 lead, that's tough to catch up.
"I think that was probably the stretch that we should have taken care of better, but it's obviously disappointing."
The key for the Caps now is to limit that disappointment to Thursday night's game, and to get back on track on Saturday night in Montreal as they head into the final two weeks of the 2021-22 campaign.
Back Home - Caps right wing Tom Wilson was born and raised in Toronto, and from the start of his NHL career, he has always played well against the Leafs, and particularly in Toronto. When the Caps and Leafs met earlier this season in Washington, Wilson scored two of the Caps' three goals in a 5-3 loss, scoring on the power play and while shorthanded in that game.
Wilson scored Washington's second goal of Thursday's game, doing so after exiting the penalty box following a fight with Toronto's Kyle Clifford.
The first time Wilson played an NHL game in Toronto, in November of 2013, he was 19 years old and he skated just 4:59 on the night. A year later, he played his second game in his hometown and scored his first goal in the building, and he also fought Leafs defenseman Korbinian Holzer in that tilt.
Thursday's game marked the 11th time Wilson has played a regular season game in Toronto, and he now has five goals in those 11 games. His two-goal game against the Leafs in Washington on Feb. 28 were his first goals against the Leafs in 10 home games against them during the regular season, but he scored a game-winning overtime goal against Toronto in Game 1 of the 2017 opening-round playoff series between the two teams in D.C. He also had a two-goal game in Toronto in Game 4 of that series, the only two-goal game of his 82-game Stanley Cup playoff career to date.
Hot Stuff - In addition to his dazzling 4-on-4 goal on a brilliant individual effort, Carlson assisted on Wilson's goal, extending his point streak to five straight games (four goals, seven assists). He has now recorded four multiple-point games in his last five.
Carlson's goal in Thursday's game was his 15th of the season, matching his single-season career best. He had 15 goals in 2017-18 and again in 2019-20, when he was the runner-up in Norris Trophy voting.
This season marks the third season of Carlson's career in which he has scored 15 goals and amassed 50 assists, the most such seasons of any defenseman in Washington's franchise history. Only 14 defensemen in League history have had three such seasons, and among active blueliners, only Carlson and San Jose's Erik Karlsson have done so. Karlsson has had four seasons with 15 or more goals and 50 or more assists.
It Takes Two - For the second time in as many games against Toronto this season, the Caps needed both of their goaltenders. Samsonov started both games, and Vitek Vanecek finished both. But in both games, the Caps were outskated by the younger and swifter Leafs in the first period, resulting in a two-goal hole for Washington after the first period of both games.
"I actually think Sammy made some really big saves early, and Vitek as well," says Caps center Nic Dowd. "But again, a slow start."
If not for some stellar stops from Samsonov early in Thursday's game, the Caps would have been in a four-goal ditch after the first. He robbed both William Nylander and Auston Matthews in the first period, keeping the Caps within striking distance until the floodgates opened midway through the middle period.
"They had a couple of nice shots that went in the net," says Laviolette. "For the most part, I don't think we did a very good job defending in front of our goaltenders. We gave the opportunity way too many times for the opposition to make something happen. We needed to do a much better job in front of both of the goaltenders."
The 400 Club - Caps defenseman Matt Irwin skated in the 400th game of his NHL career on Thursday night in Toronto. It's been a big week for Irwin, whose wife gave birth to their second child, a daughter, on Monday. A night later in the romp over the Flyers, Irwin stepped into the lineup and scored his first goal as a member of the Capitals, and notched the 10th multiple-point game of his NHL career.
A side note, as Irwin informs us on Friday, he also skated in his 300th career NHL game in Toronto, doing so on Jan. 7, 2019 while skating for the Laviolette-coached Nashville Predators. Irwin collected a helper that night against the Leafs, three-plus years ago.
By The Numbers - Carlson led the Caps with 23:05 in ice time … Five different Washington skaters had three shots on net to lead the team, and Alex Ovechkin had six shot attempts to pace the Caps … Nick Jensen led the Caps with six hits … Trevor van Riemsdyk and Justin Schultz each blocked three shots to lead Washington … Backstrom won six of nine face-offs (67 percent).