Washington’s four-game winning streak came to a halt on Sunday afternoon in a 4-3 loss to the visiting Vancouver Canucks at Capital One Arena. Facing a Canucks team that was playing its third game in less than 72 hours, the Caps didn’t truly make them feel the toll of the travel and the toil until they had spotted them a four-goal lead before the five-minute mark of the second period.
“We just weren’t ready to play, in a bunch of different facets, I thought,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We couldn’t forecheck, couldn’t get a puck in, struggled to exit our zone, [and a] bunch of touches that went south on us.”
One of the cleanest elements of Washington’s early season game had been its breakouts, but a pair of failed zone exits led to a pair of Vancouver goals in the first frame of Sunday’s game, and the Caps compounded the problem with an unsuccessful coach’s challenge on the second of those Canucks goals; Vancouver extended its early lead to 3-0 on the ensuing power play.
The trouble started in the game’s first minute. Washington was unable to exit its end cleanly along the wall, and when Aliaksei Protas lost the handle, Conor Garland grabbed the puck down low and fed center Elias Pettersson, who snapped a shot past Charlie Lindgren high on the glove side to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead, 59 seconds into the contest.
The Capitals weren’t able to get to their game at all in the first, and going on the game’s first power play midway through the initial period was of no aid in that regard; they did not generate a shot on net.
With less than three minutes remaining in the first, another failed exit hurt them, this time doubly. After collecting the puck in the corner of his own end, Connor McMichael was able to get it out of the zone, but his exit feed went right to Quinn Hughes, who quickly sprung Filip Chytil back into Washington ice. Chytil took it right to the net, and Lindgren made the save but did not secure the puck.
In the ensuing goalmouth scramble, the puck came out to veteran defenseman Tyler Myers, who popped it home over a sprawled Lindgren, making it 2-0 at 17:11. After deliberating a bit, the Caps called timeout and elected to make a challenge, which was quickly ruled unsuccessful.
“The way we saw that is their stick, Chucky puts his hand on the [puck], and [Evander] Kane’s stick pushes through his glove so that he can’t freeze it there,” says Carbery, of the Caps’ second unsuccessful challenge of the season. “We didn’t get an explanation, but that was the reason for the challenge.”
Forty-one seconds into the subsequent Vancouver power play, Kiefer Sherwood buried a loose puck from the top of the paint to make it 3-0 at 17:52.
A Tom Wilson hit on Filip Chytil resulted in the latter leaving the game late in the first, and officials initially boxed Wilson for the hit. But in reviewing it to determine whether it might have been a five-minute major, the officials came to the correct conclusion that it was a clean hit, and no penalty was assessed. Chytil did not return to the game.
Vancouver expanded its lead early in the second. Neither John Carlson nor Jakob Chychrun were able to settle a bouncing puck in the slot in front of Lindgren, but Canucks center Teddy Blueger was able to do so, firing it past Lindgren at 4:54 to put the Caps into a four-goal ditch.
After the midpoint of the middle period, the Caps got on the board when they made good on their third power play opportunity of the afternoon. Dylan Strome and Wilson made a pair of good passes to set up Ryan Leonard, whose first bid was denied by the right pad of Vancouver goaltender Thatcher Demko. But Leonard collected and buried the rebound for his first career power-play goal at 13:42.
“I hoped to start something for our team,” says Leonard. “We were down 4-0 at the time, so I was just trying to do something to spark the team, and it was a great play by Tom.”
In the third, the Caps teed up nearly half – 38 of 84 – shot attempts on the afternoon. Though their accuracy left a bit to be desired – only a dozen of those 38 tee-ups were on goal while 11 were blocked and 15 missed the mark – the Caps managed to light the lamp twice to pull within a goal of the visitors, and they still had a couple of minutes remaining with which to find the equalizer.
But it wasn’t to be.
Chychrun made it 4-2 on a nice feed from Hendrix Lapierre at 9:02 of the third, finishing off a dominant offensive zone shift with a flourish. And with Lindgren off for an extra attacker, Carlson found twine with a center point drive, making it 4-3 with 2:14 left.
“Obviously, the first period was pretty bad,” says Chychrun. “But that’s one thing that’s great about this group is that our bad periods don’t seem to carry over into another one. We come in here, we regroup and get back to work. It’s something to be proud of. We left Chucky out to dry a bit in the first, but we rallied for him and came up just short.”
Five Washington shot tries were blocked and two more missed the mark in those final 134 seconds after the Carlson goal, allowing the Canucks to get out of town with an impressive three wins in less than 72 hours to start a five-game road trip.
Vancouver played without Brock Boeser, who was a late scratch for personal reasons.
“We had a really good start, as you saw,” says Canucks coach Adam Foote. “As the game went on, we lost a couple of guys, so we were trying to keep it together, and they made a strong push as we knew they would. And we were able to get a big win.”
