The loss ended the Capitals’ winning streak at nine games
and came three weeks to the day after their previous loss, a 4-1 decision in
Florida against the Panthers.
One might have had a feeling early on that this would not be
the Caps’ night. Although the first
period ended scoreless, the Hurricanes enjoyed a 24-13 edge in total shot
attempts and an 11-8 edge in shots on goal.
The pressure got to the Caps early in the second period when Phil DiGiuseppe
converted a cross-ice feed from Joachim Nordstrom, one timing the puck off
goalie Philipp Grubauer’s stick and arm, and into the back of the net.
The Caps tied the game barely two minutes later when Nicklas
Backstrom took a feed from Karl Alzner at his own blue line, worked his way op
ice into the Carolina zone, and when the defense gave him space, he wristed a
sneaky shot past goalie Eddie Lack to make it 1-1 at the 9:49 mark.
That is the way the score stood going into the second
intermission, but it did not stay that way for long into the third period. Eric Staal broke the tie at the 51 second
mark…barely. A Kris Versteeg shot was
kicked out by Grubauer, but it was a long rebound into the slot. Elias Lindholm took a whack at it, and the
puck took a couple of odd bounces, eventually sliding to the top of the crease
to Grubauer’s right where Staal found it.
Staal had nothing but an open net to shoot at, but his shot was knocked
down by Grubauer’s stick. The referee
signaled no goal, and the teams played on.
Play continued for another 28 seconds until the horn stopped play. After review, it was clear that while
Grubauer knocked the shot out of the air with his stick, the puck fell to the
ice behind the goal line, a good goal.
Jeff Skinner made it 3-1 a little more than four minutes
later when Riley Nash worked the puck around the back of the Washington net and
fed it out to Skinner in front for a one-timer that beat Grubauer cleanly.
The Caps took advantage of sloppy Carolina play in front of
their own net to close the margin to one goal.
Defenseman Noah Hanafin sent the puck forward to Brett Pesce along the
right wing wall. Pesce’s return pass to
Hanafin was deflected into the air by Brooks Laich. Hanafin looked torn between gloving the puck
down and letting it fall to the ice. He
chose the latter. He chose poorly. He lost track of the puck, and it was just
enough for Alex Ovechkin to dart in, take possession, and rifle it over Lack;s
glove to make it 3-2 at the 14:16 mark.
Try as they might, and the effort was considerable, the Caps
could not get the equalizer. Andrej
Nestrasil closed the scoring with an empty net goal with 17.8 seconds left to clinch
the 4-2 victory for the Hurricanes.
Other stuff…
-- Three of the Caps’ seven losses in regulation this season
have come on Thursday nights, against the Dallas Stars, Florida, and now
Carolina.
-- Small things, good and bad, that loomed large.. On the Ovechkin goal, as Noah Hanafin was
wrestling with the idea of gloving the puck down or letting it fall to him,
Zach Sill jumped up to pester him and perhaps give Ovechkin the split second he
needed to get to the puck before Hanafin could recover. On the other side, shortly before the
empty-net goal by Andrej Nestrasil, Matt Niskanen was unable to negate an icing
call as Eric Staal caught and passed him to get to the puck and keep play going. Had there been an icing, the Caps might have
taken advantage of a time out to plot their last bit of strategy.
-- The “500 goal” watch can now begin in earnest. Alex Ovechkin’s goal was his 496th
career goal, and puts him one big night from reaching the milestone (he has
three four-goal games in his career).
-- Philipp Grubauer deserves credit for playing a fine
game. He allowed three goals on 36 shots,
and on none of them could he be fairly described as leaky.
-- The rest of the defense?
Well, they were pretty leaky in terms of letting Carolina run around in
the Caps’ zone. They held a 69-53
advantage in total shot attempts, and while the attempts at 5-on-5 were
relatively close for the game as a whole (57-52, Carolina), the Hurricanes held
a 43-27 edge over the first two periods at 5-on-5 (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
-- Brooks Laich was credited with an assist on the Ovechkin
goal, not the prettiest of passes, but a fine effort on his part to harass Brett
Pesce into having to make a return pass to Noah Hanafin that he got his stick
on. The assist was his first point since
December 3rd, ending a 12-game streak without one.
-- Karl Alzner had four shots on goal (second on the team in
this game). That might not sound too
impressive, but it is his high for the season and the first time he had that
many shots on goal in a game in more than two years (December 30, 2013, when he
had five in a 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators).
-- For the second time this season, the Capitals did not
have a power play. The first time was on
November 19th in a 3-2 loss to the Dallas Stars. They have had only eight power play
opportunities over their last five games.
-- On the other side, the penalty killers were a perfect
3-for-3, the fifth straight game in which the opponent was denied a power play
goal. That is their longest streak of
the season.
-- The loss kept the Caps from having their best December in
franchise history. They finished the
month with an 11-2-1 record. The
1984-1985 team keeps the record of 12-2-2.
In the end…
This loss stings a bit, given that they Caps lost to a team
that looked inferior on paper (even with the Caps’ injury situation), but
streaks end. The team did not lack for
effort, but a combination of three games in four nights, injuries to key
personnel, Carolina having a good night, and the sheer unlikelihood of putting
up double-digit game streaks all worked against the Caps.
It was not the best way to start a five-game road trip, but
the Caps get a chance to start the new year off right with another streak when they
visit Columbus on Saturday.
