For most of this month, the Caps have been engaged in some high scoring hockey games largely fueled by their own offensive prowess. But playing without captain Alex Ovechkin for the first time this season, the Capitals found the sledding difficult in a 2-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night at Capital One Arena.
Six nights ago in Denver, the Caps limited the Avalanche’s top six to just four shots on net, and they held NHL leading scorer Nathan MacKinnon without a shot on goal for the first time in 79 games. On Thursday, Washington kept that group off the scoresheet at 5-on-5, but it wasn’t enough to keep its five-game point streak (4-0-1) going.
After the Caps opened the scoring late in the first, Colorado got a fortuitous bounce on the power play – resulting in a Mikko Rantanen goal – to draw even in the back half of the second. Engaged in a 1-1 game early in the third, the Caps fell down a goal when dynamic defenseman Cale Makar fired a shot through traffic and Miles Wood deflected it home.
Although they pumped 15 pucks on Avs’ goalie Alexandar Georgiev – who came off injured reserve to earn his fourth straight win – they couldn’t manufacture an equalizer.
“I just didn't think we were very good with the puck,” laments Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “We threw it away a ton, turned it over. We couldn't generate any substantial offensive zone sequences. We had a few opportunities off the rush, but those were all on their mistakes.”
And while the Colorado top six was kept “quiet” on the scoresheet, they did control play in the Washington end far more than the Caps would like. Carbery noted the Caps’ lack of offensive zone sequences, and it was particularly glaring in the middle period where the Caps have struggled at times this year. Washington often found itself lacking the energy to attack in the aftermath of some of those stretches in the defensive zone.
“A lot of lot of energy at times can go into defending their top guys,” says Caps’ winger Tom Wilson. “You have to be really detailed, and sometimes you’ve got to go 200 feet. And that being said, we had a couple new [line] combinations, guys maybe feeling each other out a little bit. But I think we could definitely hold onto more pucks and create a little bit more offensively. Because the best way to defend that team is to hold onto the puck, and I think we just didn't do that enough for the most part tonight.”
Coming into Thursday’s game with the Avs, the Caps were the League’s most productive offensive team. They entered the game on a run of three straight games in which they had scored five or more goals, and they had netted five or more goals in half – nine of 18 – of their games on the season. But they were also playing without Ovechkin, the League’s leading goal scorer with 15 goals.
Without their biggest gun, the Caps were able to scratch out a late first-period goal and take that slim lead to the room after 20 minutes of play.
A shift after he put a shot just over the crossbar on a similar play, P-L Dubois staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 17:04 of the first, converting a terrific feed from Wilson at the back door on a timing play.
“It was a nice play by Tom,” says Dubois. “I don’t know if [Connor McMichael] got an assist on that [he didn’t], but if Mikey doesn’t forecheck, we don’t get that goal. It’s little things like that that I think our line complements each other well in that sense. Some nights, it could be Mikey – a lot of nights it’s Mikey – but some nights it’s Tom. We help each other out and we get goals at the end of the day. It’s a nice pass by him, but a really nice play buy Mikey, too.”
McMichael had a pair of second breakaways that failed to bear fruit. Late in the second, with McMichael in the box for hooking, Rantanen tried to hit MacKinnon with a seam pass, and it bounded off Caps’ defenseman Matt Roy and in, tying the game at 1-1 at 14:19.
Logan Thompson was again excellent in the Washington nets, and his last minute save on Artturi Lehkonen – off a setup from MacKinnon – was one of his best of the game; he flashed his left pad to keep the game even heading to the final period.
“Obviously MacKinnon is coming down, so you’ve got to honor him,” says Thompson. “He’s one of the best players in the world. I kind of knew Lehkonen was coming down, and I kind of got lucky and got my leg there. I think if he got it up, it would have been a different story.”
Early in the third, Colorado’s fourth line cobbled together the game-winner, but it was Makar who made the play happen, spinning off a check near the left point and managing to squeeze off a shot despite having very little room with which to work. Wood caught just enough of it to get it by Thompson, and the Avs held a 2-1 lead at 3:29 of the third.
Washington had a power play opportunity midway through the third, and while it looked better than their first one, it failed to bear fruit, as did nearly three minutes of 6-on-5 time with Thompson on the bench for an extra attacker.
“I thought that was a good game,” says Thompson. “It was a back and forth, playoff type of game and that’s a talented hockey group. That’s the hockey gods; sometimes those bounces don’t go in, and the bounces went against us tonight. It’s unfortunate; we were there the whole game, and we had a great late push the last couple minutes of the game.”
Having won the first two games of a four-game road trip, Colorado heads to Florida for the rest of the journey.
“It’s a big win for us, we kind of keep this thing rolling a little bit here,” says Colorado coach Jared Bednar. “Not an easy game, that’s for sure. I liked a lot of the things we were doing; I think we stuck with our forecheck, [offensive] zone play, grinding to find scoring chances, andf finding a way to capitalize on a couple.”
