CAPITAL EXPENSE

In the first game back from a nine-day break, there was bound to be some rust.
How much, and how quickly the Flames could grind it out the burrs remained to seen.
It was a classic case of close, but not close enough.
Along with a healthy dose of heartbreak.

Elias Lindholm made it a 3-3 game with 7:59 to play in the third period, but Evgeni Kuznetzov sniped home the winning tally on a late powerplay, lifting the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals to a 4-3 win over the Flames on Friday in D.C.
Kuznetzov turned a close play at the blueline into a partial 3-on-1, walking in and firing a laser from the left dot over the shoulder of Mike Smith with 57 seconds left.
The Flames had a couple of great looks in the dying moments of the game, but were unable to come up with the equalizer, snapping a three-game winning streak and dropping their overall record to 33-14-5.

Mikael Backlund and Garnet Hathaway also had goals, and Smith made 36 saves in the defeat.
"We're going to learn from it, obviously," said captain Mark Giordano. "3-3, that late, you want to get that point on the road.
"It's going to be like this. Teams are battling for the playoffs. Teams are fighting and points are huge. It's tough to give that one away, to be honest. ... In saying that, we've had a lot go our way this year, so we'll take that and learn from it. We really haven't had many go this way and it stings, for sure."
Trailing by one, and with Flames carrying the play midway through the third, Lindholm tipped home a Johnny Gaudreau drive from the centre point, tying the game at three and breathing new life into the Flames.
But a tough penalty to Backlund put the vaunted Caps powerplay on the ice late, and a broken play ended up in the back of the Flames' net at the most inopportune time.
"I don't know if (the penalty call) needs to be made at that time in the game," said head coach Bill Peters. "That's too good of a powerplay to put on display, especially three times in a row, and probably in about a 10-minute span, is what that amounted to.
"I thought that hurt us and took some guys out of the game."
The Capitals drew first blood at the three-minute mark after applying some dogged pressure on the forecheck. Michael Kempny made a great play to keep the puck in off a Smith clearing attempt at the near point. That led to a quick shot and a rebound in the blue paint, before getting the puck at the line and feeding it across to his D partner, John Carlson. Nic Down got the tip on the ensuing Carlson blast, beating Smith low stick side for his fifth of the year.
An incredible solo effort by Backlund evened things up with 2:23 to play, and seemed to the settle the troops after a sloppy start offensively. Backlund beat three red sweaters with a filthy chip play in the neutral zone, took the puck on his off hand and burned the beck-pedalling blueliner, before cutting across the blue paint and one-handling it home - a la Peter Forsberg - to record his 13th of the campaign.

The goal wouldn't have been possible without Smith - rebounding from the tough start - making a beautiful right-pad stop off Lars Eller moments earlier to keep it a one-goal game. Eller took a terrific, no-look feed from Brett Connolly and had a clean look from the hash marks, but Smith pushed to his right and smothered the Dane's breakaway try with a fine show of athleticism.
The Caps got it right back, though, as Dmitrij Jaskin jammed home a loose puck with 35.7 seconds left to restore the one-goal lead, capping scramble that saw Eller get three swipes a loose puck in front of the netminder.
The teams traded goals in the opening three minutes of the second - Tom Wilson for the Caps, and Hathaway for the Flames - to make it a 3-2 game.
Just 1:23 after Wilson beat Smith blocker-side from the right circle, Hathaway was last to touch a pinballing T.J. Brodie point shot, beating Caps goalie Braden Holtby under the arm. Derek Ryan picked up the other assist, as the initial blast caromed off his keister en route before striking Hathaway in front.
"I thought we had a lot of good shifts in their zone. When we got it, we were good; we held it, we made plays," Giordano said. " But they gained momentum on their powerplays. I thought they had a lot of looks. We took a couple [penalties] in the second and that killed our momentum a bit. I thought we grabbed it again in the third, but obviously that late one is tough to swallow."
ONE-TIMERS
Travis Hamonic left the game in the second period after suffering a lower-body injury in a first-period collision with Capitals forward Jakub Vrana. The D man briefly returned on two occasions, but left again both times and did not return with a lower-body injury.
"He tried to gut it out, but we'll know more tomorrow," Peters said.