Caps Drop 4-1 Decision to Devils

Monday night wasn't the Caps' night in Newark. Facing the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center, the Caps were slow out of the gates, spotting their hosts a two-goal cushion before they got on track themselves. It proved to be too little, too late as the Devils forged their fourth victory in as many preseason games, 4-1.

Washington got off to a most sluggish start. For much of the preseason, Caps coach Peter Laviolette has lamented his team's proclivity for turning the puck over. On more than one occasion, he specifically noted that offensive zone turnovers are frequently leading to odd-man opportunities in the opposite direction. Prior to the first television timeout, the Caps had an abbreviated power play of 65 seconds in duration, during which two offensive zone turnovers led to odd-man rushes for New Jersey.
"Well, the first period wasn't good," says Laviolette. "It was like we were carrying the plane around with us all over the ice. We were too slow and we weren't sharp."
Making his first start of the preseason, Vitek Vanecek kept the Devils at bay through most of the first frame, but New Jersey took a 1-0 lead on a power play late in the first. With Garrett Pilon off for hi-sticking in the offensive zone, Dawson Mercer rushed the puck up ice. He lost possession just before reaching the paint, but Alexander Holtz was there to quickly grab the disc and lift it to the shelf for a 1-0 New Jersey lead at the 19-minute mark.
Offensively, the Caps generated little in the first. They managed a shot on net in the first minute and another in the eighth minute. They then went more than 10 minutes without putting a puck on Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, who was seeing his first action of the preseason. The Caps managed two more shots on net in the final 130 seconds of the first frame, one of them coming from the neutral zone.
New Jersey doubled its lead early in the second when Michael McLeod and Janne Kuokkanen worked a give-and-go off the rush, with the former supplying the finish from just below the left dot at 2:39 of the middle frame, lifting the Devils to a 2-0 advantage.
The Caps began to mount more of an attack and started to spend more time in the offensive zone soon after the McLeod goal. Matt Irwin made a nice play in neutral ice to send Daniel Sprong into New Jersey ice, and Sprong made a strong feed from the right half-wall to set up Connor McMichael for a good chance from the slot, but Blackwood made a right pad stop.
Midway through the second, Caps center Hendrix Lapierre made an excellent backcheck to break up what might have been a two on none rush, and he even drew an offensive zone hooking call on Devils forward Miles Wood on the play. But the Caps weren't able to convert on the extra-man opportunity.
In the final minute of the middle period, McMichael did put Washington on the board on a Caps power play. After Devils defender Kevin Bahl whiffed on a clearing attempt, McMichael collected the puck and fired a wrist shot from the right circle, catching the far corner of the cage at 19:18 to make it a 2-1 game.
"It kind of took a weird bounce off the boards and came right to me," recounts McMichael. "I looked up and had some space, and just decided to pick the far side, and I was thankful it went in."
Early in the third, Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk caught Devils center Jesper Boqvist up high with his stick, incurring a double-minor for hi-sticking. New Jersey's Pavel Zacha restored his team's two-goal cushion on the front end of that infraction, firing a laser of a wrist shot past Vanecek from the left circle at 5:59 of the third.
Devils winger Jimmy Vesey scored into a vacated Washington cage in the waning seconds to account for the 4-1 final.
"In the second period - after they scored that goal early - I thought we really did a good job in the second," says Laviolette. "Our guys got going and played hard. But you're behind the eight-ball 2-0, and we fought back to make it 2-1, and they catch a power play goal in the third."