Late last week, the Caps came to Raleigh for Games 3 and 4 of their playoff series with the Hurricanes and needing a split to restore home ice advantage for themselves in the best-of-seven set. But it took them more than five periods to find the back of the net once they arrived, and after Monday’s 5-2 loss in Game 4 at Lenovo Center, the Caps return home with no margin for error; they trail the series 3-1.
Although the Caps again authored a good start and had some good moments in Monday’s game, they again fell behind and found themselves chasing the game and now, the series. Washington is not helping itself with its lack of execution in key moments or its inability to gain or retain momentum when it matters most.
“We’re giving ourselves some opportunities,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We’re just not executing, making the play, whatever you want to call it. And we’re making some mistakes and they’re capitalizing on them.”
Carolina kept the Caps well out of their reach for most of the 120 minutes of hockey played at Lenovo Center in these last two games; the Canes have won five straight home games to start the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. They outscored the Caps by an aggregate 9-2 in Games 3 and 4 in Raleigh, with only one of those nine goals going into a vacant net.
“I thought our first two games [in Washington] might have been better than these games,” says Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour. “Just the chances we’ve given up; it’s a little too much here for me. But obviously at this time of year, it’s about results. I like where we’re at, that’s for sure.”
Similar to Saturday’s Game 3, the Caps started Monday’s Game 4 with a few reasonably good scoring chances. Connor McMichael forced Frederik Andersen to make a save on his backhand bid early in the first, and Aliaksei Protas rang the right post behind the veteran netminder on the same shift. Andersen then denied Dylan Strome’s tip-in attempt.
At the opposite end of the sheet, Logan Thompson also made some early stops. He thwarted Jaccob Slavin from the slot and then made two quick denials in short succession on Jordan Staal from the top of the paint.
But just after the midpoint of the period, the Canes grabbed the lead.
Blueliner Shayne Gostisbehere surveyed from center point for Carolina, and not finding a lane, he walked the line with his head up, looking for a better option. As he reached the left point – and as Carolina’s Jesperi Kotkaniemi arrived at the net front – Gostisbehere let a wrist shot fly and it found purchase behind Thompson for a 1-0 Carolina lead at 10:24.
Just under two minutes later, the Caps went on the game’s first power play, an opportunity that produced one shot on net and only sporadic zone time.
Late in the first, the Caps had a golden opportunity to pull even – or better – when Carolina’s Jordan Martinook was boxed for a double-minor for hi-sticking Jakub Chychrun. The result of those dismal four minutes was a couple of giveaways, a couple of missed shots and a big Thompson save on Eric Robinson from the top of the paint, preventing the Canes from doubling their lead while shorthanded.
“The way they kill, it’s tough for us to create anything right now,” laments Caps center Dylan Strome. “I thought we got a lot better as the game went on, but four minutes in the first period to do something, and we didn’t get anything done.”
“I saw what everybody in the room saw,” says Carbery of that four-minute power play. “It was not good, so we made some adjustments and made some changes to personnel on it.
“Their penalty kill is excellent, best in the League, has been for the last whatever – five years, call it. But it can’t look like that. It cannot look like that.”
Down a goal early, the Caps frittered away six minutes of power play time, time in which they could have taken control of the contest or seized momentum. And with that opportunity lost, the Canes quickly made Washington’s deficit deeper.
Less than a minute after finishing the kill early in the second, the Canes doubled their lead. Thompson got a glove on – but did not secure – a Sebastian Aho shot off the rush, and the puck fell out of his catching glove, bounced off the crossbar and dropped to the side of the net, where Seth Jarvis batted it in to make it 2-0 at 1:05.
About five minutes after the Jarvis goal, the Caps were able to generate a 4-on-2 rush into Carolina ice, a rarity for either side in this series. The result was one shot that missed the net.
Washington twice went six and a half minutes without testing Andersen in the front half of the game. And down two goals in the back half of the second and early in the third, it went more than 11 minutes without putting a puck on the Carolina goaltender, whose shutout streak was over 100 minutes by that time.
Just over five minutes into the third, the Caps were finally able to end Andersen’s shutout spell at 123 minutes and 24 seconds, doing so when Chychrun converted a Matt Roy feed at 5:18 to cut the Carolina lead to 2-1. Chychrun’s goal came on Washington’s first shot on net in just over 11 minutes of playing time.
While Andersen’s shutout streak is impressive, he went long stretches without facing any shots during that span.
“We know they’re going to have times where they’re going to have momentum,” says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. “They throw a lot of pucks at the net. I think it’s our job to minimize that as much as possible, get down to the other end and just realize those moments, make some plays to break their pressure and get back the other way.
“We have a recipe that works when we’re getting pucks down there and tilting the ice, but we’ve got to do it a little more consistently.”
Having finally broken the shutout spell, prosperity was again short-lived. Before the Caps could get fully engaged in the manufacture of an equalizer, a Washington blunder enabled Carolina to restore its two-goal lead.
Before the midpoint of the third, the Caps lost track of Canes winger Taylor Hall, who stealthily slipped his way to the Washington line while the puck was deep in Carolina ice. Jack Roslovic spotted his teammate a couple zones away from the action and sprung him with a stretch feed, sending him in on a breakaway. Hall beat Thompson on the blocker side at 8:24 to make it 3-1.
“Both of our [defensemen] lost basically track, that there was a guy in behind [them],” says Carbery. “So our forecheck, a failed forecheck, and then both [defensemen] are down."
The Caps benefitted from a pair of Carolina penalties in the back half of the third, leading to two-man advantage and another opportunity to pull even. When Alex Ovechkin drilled a rocket of a shot past Andersen early in the 5-on-3, the Caps had closed to 3-2 and they still had 77 seconds worth of man advantage time with which to work.
But the Caps not only couldn’t muster a threat for the tying tally, they went shorthanded themselves when P-L Dubois held Roslovic with 5:34 remaining. Washington executed the penalty kill, but seconds after doing so, it lost control of the puck high in Carolina ice, and the Canes took off on an odd man rush. The Canes have found their finish on home ice, and Sean Walker scored to make it 4-2 with 3:15 left.
Andrei Svechnikov added an empty net goal just under a minute later to account for the 5-2 final. The Canes netted nine goals in two games in Carolina after being limited to just three lamplighters in the two games in Washington.
Carolina never led in the two games in Washington, but it eked out an overtime win in Game 1. The Caps never held a lead in the two games in Carolina, and they return home for Thursday’s Game 5 with their splendid season now in peril.
“We looked excellent to start that hockey game,” says Carbery. “Fast, pucks were going to good spots, execution was spot on. But then you have a shift or two shifts where you fail to exit the [defensive] zone, you just were not able to get that puck past the blueline. You don’t have to make a play; it just has to get past that blueline and it doesn’t. And now, lookout.
“Those are key plays that we have to learn – and guys have to learn – that it just cannot happen when the stakes [are high], when you get to this point in the playoffs, with the best eight teams in the National Hockey League. It just can’t happen.”
A lost weekend leaves the Caps in dire straits for sure, but they’re still breathing.
“Our guys will fight, just like they did tonight,” says Carbery. “We’re down 2-0, they reset, we fought right to the end. It doesn’t work out, but I don’t expect anything different. We fought all year and our guys, I know the character of our group.”
