GAME RECAP: Capitals 3, Oilers 2

EDMONTON, AB - You did good, Stu.
Despite a stellar night from goaltender Stuart Skinner, the Edmonton Oilers couldn't back up their netminder's terrific performance as the Blue & Orange were defeated 3-2 by the Washington Capitals on Monday night.
Skinner stopped 47-of-50 shots sent his way by the Capitals, who persisted and got the game-winning goal from Nic Dowd 7:13 into the third period despite falling behind twice to the Oilers in a game where the momentum that was shifted firmly into Edmonton's end.
Brett Kulak scored his first goal of the campaign early in the second period, while Connor McDavid notched his 22nd of the season on a short-handed breakaway in the losing effort.
Edmonton falls to 14-12-0 on the season and head into the third game of a four-game homestand on Wednesday versus the Arizona Coyotes.

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STU SAVES THE DAY

In a 22-shot spree from the Capitals in the opening period, Stuart Skinner kept Edmonton in it.
"I think if you get a couple of good chances on you and you end up making all the saves, I think you just get a little bit of a confidence boost," Skinner said. "You're feeling good, you got to a sweat on and the body's warm, so that's kind of what happened tonight."
It was more-or-less one-way traffic in the opening 20 minutes towards the Oilers crease being guarded by Skinner, who was making his 14th start of the season after stopping 30-of-33 shots in Saturday's 5-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens. The Edmonton product parried away all 22 efforts from the Capitals put on goal in the first period, including his finest work in the frame coming on the Capitals' first man advantage.
After Alex Ovechkin's one-timer rebounded off Dylan Strome in the danger zone, T.J. Oshie had the chance to bury one off his backhand, but a quick stetch of the right pad from Skinner denied the Capitals on his biggest of eight saves he had to make on the first Oilers penalty kill. His teammates would be thanking their netminder for keeping the score 0-0 at the first intermission.
"They got on the power play pretty early and I got a few shots on the power play, so after that, I was ready to go."

FIRST BLOOD

Against a heavy shot disadvantage in the first frame, the Oilers broke through early in the second period.
Defenceman Brett Kulak walked along the blueline and let fly a slapshot that was placed perfectly past the screening Mattias Janmark, who impeded the vision of Capitals netminder Charlie Lindgren to contribute to a 1-0 Edmonton advantage 1:14 into the middle frame.
The lead was well against the flow of play in the hockey game, and the Capitals tied the score at 13:35 of the second period by making the most of a loose puck that came off the stick of Leon Draisaitl along the halfboards and turned into a Lars Eller equalizer.

HAND-EYE CONNOR-DINATION

Out on the penalty kill for a segment of his 2:34 of total shorthanded ice time on the evening, McDavid batted a pass out of mid-air from former Norris Trophy winner John Carlson to send himself on a breakaway against Lindgren.
McDavid darted in with speed up the ice and cradled the puck with quick hands coming towards the Capitals keeper before he broke his own stick handle to deliver a quick shot five-hole on Lindgren for his 22nd marker of the campaign and his second breakaway goal in as many games. Despite being heavily outshot in the game, the Oilers managed to take two seperate leads in the game.
"I think he's one of our best penalty-killers up front; someone who understands how power plays work," Woodcroft said. "The routes he skates are very good. I trust him, and I think when he's on the ice, he makes the penalty kill better. We're looking for other people to step up a little bit and take some of that ice time as well, but we're asking Connor to calm the waters there on the penalty killing and he's done a good job. He scored a big goal for us."

SAVE OF THE GAME

Skinner got the best of Oshie's quick release at the end of a Capitals passing play on the power play with 3:45 remaining in the second period, making a quick left-pad save before turning away a pair of rebound whacks from Strome to the left of the net to keep the Oilers ahead, if only for a short moment.
Washington equalized for the second time in the game on a mirror play to the one that Skinner had just denied 40 seconds earlier, when Oshie finished off a tic-tac-toe exchange with Strome and Evgeny Kuznetsov from in front of the Oilers goal.

TURNING POINT

Eventually, the Capitals' tide of chances overtook the Oilers.
Facing a 47-25 shot disadvantage as the clock dipped below 13 minutes remaining in regulation, a breakaway for forward Aliaksei Protas led to the Capitals taking their first deserved lead of the contest. Protas had an avenue to shoot on the in-alone, but he elected to drop it to linemate Nic Dowd, who sent the go-ahead goal far side past Skinner and a backwards-facing Evan Bouchard who was getting back to his feet after back-tracking against the breakaway. It would be the game's decisive action that would lift a hard-pressing Capitals team into a 3-2 lead they wouldn't relinquish.

"Yeah, it was a really nice play," Skinner said. "I was actually ready for both plays. I got snowed a little bit, so I kind of lost just like the puck. Then, he made a nice shot. I'm not too sure, I'd have to watch back with Schwarzy to see kind of what I could have done better, but I mean, they made a good play there and they took advantage of it."
"Our goalie stood tall," Coach Woodcroft said. "We were going into the third period tied 2-2 and made a critical error that ended up in the back of our net."

TOP PERFORMER

It was an easy award for Skinner, who earned the game's First Star honours despite the Capitals claiming victory. The 47 saves and 50 shots faced set new career highs for Skinner, who made 46 stops in a 2-1 shootout win over the Winnipeg Jets back on Nov. 18, 2021. But this time, a near-equal effort from the local product breaks up a three-game win streak for the 24-year-old.

PARTING WORDS

Kulak on the Oilers giving up too much in their own zone:
"I think it's just the consistency throughout the game. We'll go stretches where we're awesome, we barely spend any time in our zone and we're playing well, and then we'll go stretches where we get hemmed in and then give up a few Grade-A (chances). Stu obviously did a heck of a job again tonight, but at the end of the day, it was just little mistakes.
"You obviously you want to get shutouts every single night. The reality is that's not what it is, and so you know what, this is the way it is right now and we've got to address it and keep working away at it to build our game. It's not necessarily right now is where you want to be peaking. You've got to build and get more consistency. It goes on, and I think we've done that over the last few weeks, and you want to be at your best heading into the postseason. So we've got to keep chipping away."
Nurse on bringing their second- and third-period starts to the first period:
"We just gotta play. I mean, we come in here and we talk about it every day. We sit here after the game and talk about it over and over again. We just got to play that and we're working on it. Obviously you want to have good starts each and every night, but we're sitting here and it's a part of our game almost over a quarter of the way through a season that we need to clean up. But the more we just talk away and pester at it, we just need to show up and play and relax, put our ears back and come on the attack. Not so much thinking about it."

Coach Woodcroft on Kailer Yamamoto's first game back and missing Zach Hyman from the lineup:
"I thought he was very good. I thought he did some good things on penalty kill. I thought he was physical. We've missed him, obviously. We've been going through it with some injuries up front and still missing four of our top nine forwards. I thought the people that were in there weren't perfect, but they competed very hard."
"Zach is money in the bank with his effort level and his doggedness. Like you said, not having him in the lineup was tough, but I thought our guys went in and they gave us everything they had. We lost a 3-2 hockey game."