Caps Fall to Flames, 5-2

Seeking some traction and some consistency on Saturday night in Calgary against the Flames, the Capitals found neither. Washington came up empty at 5-on-5 in a 5-2 loss to the Flames, and even worse, it lost a pair of pivotal performers to injury in the second period when defenseman Martin Fehervary and goaltender Darcy Kuemper departed, both with upper body injuries. Neither returned.

Although the Caps split the first two games of their current six-game road trip, they generated a great deal of offensive chances in both games. Those chances have largely dried up in the last two games, a 3-2 overtime loss in Seattle on Thursday and tonight's setback to the Flames. Washington has managed just a single goal at 5-on-5 in those two contests, that one coming off the stick of Fehervary in the first period of the Seattle game.
"I thought the first period was okay," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "The second, we didn't generate anything. I thought at times we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit turning the puck over. And when we did get it down into the offensive zone, [we had] too many one versus two, one versus three and not much two versus one and three versus one in the battles. The way [the Flames] defend, with man on man coverage, you've got to throw the numbers into the battles."
The Caps and Flames parried back and forth for most of the first period, trading shots and the occasional scoring chance. Washington wasn't able to score with the game's first power play, despite getting some good retrievals, looks and zone time on the opportunity.
Late in the frame, the Flames put together a strong and sustained shift in Washington ice, and it paid off in a Blake Coleman goal from the right dot at 18:03, a snipe of a shot tucked under the bar.
Seconds later, the Flames took their second penalty of the first frame, both drawn by Nic Dowd and both deep in Washington ice. This time, the Caps took advantage, tying the game just ahead of the first intermission.
Ten seconds after Evgeny Kuznetsov won a right dot draw in Calgary ice, Sonny Milano perfectly fed Conor Sheary, who ripped a shot home from the right dot to tie the game at 1-1 with 33.1 seconds left in the first. Sheary's ninth goal of the season was his second power-play strike in as many games.
Early in the second, Calgary regained the lead when Mikael Backlund passed out of the slot to Andrew Mangiapane, and the latter roofed a shot from virtually no angle, from the bottom of the right circle at 1:35 of the period.
Mangiapane's goal gave the Flames a 2-1 lead, and the remainder of the frame was decidedly lackluster for the Capitals, but even worse, Washington lost a pair of key performers in Fehervary and Kuemper in the middle period. Fehervary left the ice midway through the period after a hit from Calgary's Milan Lucic along the wall in Washington ice. The sophomore blueliner went right down the tunnel and did not return.
Kuemper departed the Caps' crease during a television timeout with 3:51 left; video showed the Washington netminder taking an elbow from Calgary winger Tyler Toffoli - a former teammate in Los Angeles - shortly before the goaltending change.
As to the Caps' offensive output in the second, they had two shots in the first period of the period, and just three the rest of the way, none from inside of 45 feet away. Virtually every zone entry was of the none and done variety, while Calgary kept the heat on the Caps at the other end of the ice, putting a dozen pucks on Kuemper prior to his departure and two more at Charlie Lindgren, who came on in relief.
Despite their lack of offensive wherewithal in the middle period, the Caps were a puck away from being even as the third period got underway. And when Calgary's Jonathan Huberdeau was whistled for the Flames' third minor penalty of the game - all of them in the offensive zone - at 5:27 of the third, the Caps had an opportunity to pull even. But Washington managed only a single shot from John Carlson from center point during its final power play chance of the night.
When Marcus Johansson put a wrist shot on Flames netminder Dan Vladar from 18 feet away at 11:23 of the third period, it marked Washington's first shot on net from inside of 30 feet in a span of over 31 minutes of playing time, going back to when the game was still level at 1-1.
"I think it's just consistency throughout the lineup," says Caps winger T.J. Oshie of the team's dormant 5-on-5 attack. "We're not doing stuff great all over the ice these last two games. Even though we had a chance to win the game last game, it still wasn't great. And I think that's taken away from our chances to score offense. When we got pucks set up in their end tonight, it seemed like we were a little perimeter."
With the Caps pressing for offense in the back half of the third, Calgary struck for a pair of rush goals 55 seconds apart to widen its lead. After assisting on each of the first two Flames goals, Adam Ruzicka made it 3-1 with a breakaway goal at 13:39. Less than a minute later, Mangiapane netted his second of the game to make it 4-1 with 5:26 remaining.
A cluster of late penalties led to a two-man advantage for the Flames as well as some 4-on-3 time, and Washington pulled a goal closer when Carlson scored with 1:06 remaining to cut the Calgary lead to two. Laviolette pulled Lindgren, and Dillon Dube accounted for the 5-2 final with an empty-net goal in the waning seconds of the contest.
"There's over 10 chances in the first period," reiterates Laviolette. "What I didn't like was the second period. The second period, we didn't generate anything. The third period, I thought we came out and tried to push, and when you're trying to push like that, we got exposed off the rush."