Last season, the Capitals didn’t drop three straight games in regulation until late February when they were three-quarters of the way through the 2024-25 season. After falling 3-1 to the New York Islanders on Friday night at Capital One Arena, the Caps are now carrying a three-game regulation losing streak at the end of the season’s first month, 11 games into the season.
In addition to the game, the Caps also lost the services of center P-L Dubois, who departed the game after getting tangled up following a defensive zone face-off late in the first period. Dubois, who missed five games with a lower body injury earlier in the season, will be re-evaluated on Saturday.
Washington was already without the services of center Dylan Strome (lower body), and the loss of Dubois left them without each of their top two pivots and with a tangled mishmash of forward lines the rest of the way.
The Caps entered Friday’s game having scored just one goal in their previous two games. They came out flying in the first on Friday, but despite playing a spirited first frame, they had nothing to show for it on the scoreboard, and they again were limited to a single tally on the night.
“I just didn’t feel like we were able to sustain it,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his team’s strong start. “We lose Dubois partway through the first period, and it felt like after that we just couldn’t find anything. There were spurts and a few stretches, but not nearly enough. We weren’t able to get back to our game with the line combinations that we were throwing out.”
The Caps poured 13 shots on New York netminder Ilya Sorokin in the first period, and although 10 of those shots came from inside of 25 feet from the net, the Isles keeper stopped them all. Washington dominated most of the game’s first 20 minutes, playing with great pace, generating scoring chances, and keeping the visitors on their heels for much of the period.
Late in the period, Dubois had to be helped to his feet and helped off the ice. The team announced he had suffered a lower body injury and would not return to the game. Dubois returned from a five-game injury absence for a lower body ailment just under a week ago and Friday’s contest was his third since re-entering the lineup.
Early in the second, Washington jumped out to a 1-0 lead. When Jakob Chychrun’s left point clapper was blocked in front, the Caps finally got a bit of puck luck when the disc bounded right to the tape of Tom Wilson at the bottom of the right circle. From there, he quickly buried it into a yawning cage, putting the Caps on top, 1-0.
“Chychy’s obviously pretty creative back there,” recounts Wilson. “And when he kept the puck, I thought if he didn't mishandle it, it might have been a seam pass, kind of to the back door. So I just stayed on my route, and his good instincts, he threw it to the back post. We got a bounce – and obviously a good bounce – and I'll take it. But our [defensemen] are creative, and we’ve just got to try and get to the net a little bit more and make those bounces count.”
Just after the midpoint of the middle frame, Caps goaltender Logan Thompson made a dazzling glove denial on New York’s Jonathan Drouin from point blank range in a 1-on-1 situation, preserving the Caps’ slim lead.
With New York on the power play just over a minute later, Thompson made another key stop on Bo Horvat’s one-timer from the left flank. That stop was big because defenseman Martin Fehervary had broken his stick, putting the already shorthanded Caps in peril.
Washington went on the power play with just under six minutes left in the second, and that’s where its precarious lead slipped away. After winning a protracted puck battle behind their own net, the Isles broke it out with Simon Holmstrom carrying down the left side and Jean-Gabriel Pageau riding shotgun.
From just above the top of the left circle, Holmstrom issued a perfect lead feed for Pageau, who shot it past Thompson, tying the game at 1-1. Washington issued an unsuccessful coach’s challenge on the play, alleging that Pageau had been in the zone ahead of the puck. But the NHL war room ruled there was no conclusive video evidence that was the case, leaving the Capitals 0-for-4 on coach’s challenges 11 games into the season.
The Caps were able to kill off the resulting New York power play, and the two teams entered the third in a 1-1 deadlock.
Washington killed off an early New York power play in the third, but just over a minute later, the Islanders took the lead when Horvat converted an Emil Heineman feed on a 2-on-1 rush at 4:29.
A subsequent Caps power play again bore no fruit, and they had to snuff out another Islanders man advantage in the back half of the final frame, too.
Playing without its top two centermen, Washington could not mount a comeback and could not replicate its performance in the game’s first 20 minutes. New York’s Mat Barzal salted the game away with an empty-net goal with 1:16 remaining, accounting for the 3-1 final.
After falling 6-2 to the Hurricanes in Raleigh on Thursday and falling down a goal to Washington a night later, the Isles rallied for a big win to quell a short three-game slide (0-2-1).
“I was very happy with this game,” says Isles coach Patrick Roy. “I feel like maybe we were a little bit shaky at the beginning of the game because of the losses that we had, and [Sorokin] was outstanding. He gave us some momentum, he gave us the belief that we could win this game, so he was – without a doubt – the first star of the game for us.”
