Coming off the high of a 5-4 comeback win in the shootout over Buffalo on Wednesday, the Caps were once again unable to follow it up with a victory in their next outing two nights later. The St. Louis Blues rolled into Washington and handed the Caps a 5-2 setback on Friday night, the team's seventh loss in its last nine home games (2-6-1).
Blues Breeze by Caps, 5-2
Another slow start dooms Caps to another evening of unsuccessful scoreboard chasing
Sammy Blais scored less than two minutes into the contest and he added the fourth St. Louis goal in the back half of the third, supporting rookie netminder Joel Hofer, who made 32 saves to pick up his second career victory in his first NHL start of 2022-23.
Blais scored on the Blues' first shot on goal of the game, marking the third straight game in which Washington fell behind on the opposition's first shot on goal of the contest.
"From a defensive standpoint, we made we made a really big mental mistakes on the goals and some of the big chances they had," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "They didn't have a ton [of chances], but the ones that we gave up were breakaways, or partial breakaways, or odd man rushes and things that can't happen. Then there's things that we're supposed to do, and we didn't. They made a lot of noise."
Since a five-game Caps winning streak ended here in D.C. on Dec. 29 against Ottawa, the Caps have managed to win two consecutive games just twice as they've tumbled down the Eastern Conference standings, going 13-17-2 since they were last able to string more than two wins together.
They've spent the second half of the campaign chasing teams in the standings and the scoreboard. In those last 32 games, Washington has owned a scoreboard lead for 480 minutes and 58 seconds of the total of 1944 minutes and 2 seconds, or less than 25 percent (24.7%) of that total time.
Only five teams have held a lead for fewer minutes than Washington over that same span, and none of those five clubs will be in the Stanley Cup Playoffs when they get underway a month from now. And the Caps' own chances of reaching the postseason for a ninth straight season are dwindling by the day; they're down to a dozen games left with which to mount a charge, and they've shown little indication they're capable of doing so for the better part of three months now.
"We put a big emphasis on our starts, and for whatever reason, we seem to come out flat in the first five or 10 minutes," says Caps' winger Conor Sheary. "And then once we find our stride and get moving and get to work, it seems like it's too late. Some games we were able to come back and force overtime or whatever it may be, but I don't know what it is. We've just got to be more ready to play."
In each of its first two games this week, the Caps were also dented for a goal against on their opponent's first shot of the night, and they found themselves trailing 3-1 after the first period of each of those games. In Friday's game against the Blues, the Caps were down just 1-0 after the first; they straightened up after the first Blais goal, only to come unraveled in the second when St. Louis struck for three goals.
Jordan Kyrou scored on a breakaway to make it 2-0 at 4:51, a play on which the Blues traversed the entire 200 feet of ice in just a few seconds. Caps killer Kasperi Kapanen got in on the act when he fired a clapper past Caps' goalie Darcy Kuemper at 9:25, his seventh goal in 20 career games against Washington, the most he has scored against any opponent.
Blais scored his second of the night at 14:36 on an extended offensive zone shift, putting the Caps in a four-goal canyon to start the third.
Washington got on the board when Alex Alexeyev made a neat feed to Martin Fehervary for a back-door tally at 5:47 of the third, but the Caps just missed on a couple of jam attempts down low as the period progressed. For the second time in as many games and the fourth time on the season, they struck for a 6-on-4 goal on a late power play - a precision shot from Nicklas Backstrom from the right dot - with Kuemper pulled for an extra skater, but it was another familiar case of too little, too late.
Brayden Schenn's long distance empty-netter accounted for the 5-2 final with 1:39 left, and it's getting dangerously close to too little, too late for the Capitals' season.
"We have no wiggle room - if any - right now," says Sheary. "So the fact that we weren't able to come out and be ready for this one and try and move up the standings is unfortunate. At this point, we've got to get rolling. And if we don't, it's going to end quickly for us."
