Caps Let One Slip Away to Pens, 5-3

A couple of bad, sloppy or lethargic minutes can be the undoing of any good hockey team on any given night, and so it was for the Capitals on Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. From the start of the game past the midpoint of the second period, the Capitals were methodical and detailed against the Pens, and they forged a 2-0 lead that could have been wider if only their net radar was a bit better.

But in the span of less than two minutes in the back half of the second period, it all came unraveled like a cheap sweater. The sudden collapse was the Caps' own doing, and they seemed powerless to stop it. In the end, Washington reaped what it sowed, a 5-3 loss that halted its seven-game winning streak.
"I thought we put together a good start to the game, and carrying the better part of the play," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "They are able to convert on a mistake by us and get some momentum, and we had a tough time of slowing it down throughout the second there. But it was a good start to the game. We just weren't able to finish it off."

Washington's best scoring chances died aborning in the first period of Tuesday's tilt. Pens defenseman Justin Schultz got a piece of John Carlson's open net bid from the bottom of the left circle midway through the first, and Alex Ovechkin missed twice from in tight on Grade A chances, too. But the Caps managed to grab a 1-0 lead in the last minute of the period.
Pens captain Sidney Crosby turned the puck over at the Washington line, and the Caps quickly headed the other way in transition. Upon gaining the Pittsburgh zone, Nicklas Backstrom and Jakub Vrana worked a neat little give-and-go, and Vrana ripped a short side rocket right under the bar from the right circle to put the Caps up 1-0 with 32.4 seconds left in the first. The goal was Vrana's 20th of the season.
Midway through the second, Vrana struck again. He scored from the right circle again, a shot that Pens goalie Matt Murray got a piece of, only to have it pop up and fall behind him and into the net for a 2-0 Washington lead at 10:24.
At that point of the contest, the Caps had everything well in hand. Pittsburgh was unable to mount much of a threat at all up to that point, but it all changed on one play.
Jake Guentzel turned the puck over high in the Washington zone, putting it right on Evgeny Kuznetsov's stick. But the Caps center was far too casual in making a play and/or moving the puck out of the zone. Pittsburgh's Jared McCann stripped Kuznetsov clean from behind, then turned and fed Guentzel for an easy back door tap-in on the resulting short ice two-on-one. That goal made it a 2-1 game at 12:37, but the crowd and the Pens were both suddenly enlivened, and it was just the beginning of the deluge.

"It was a huge goal," says Pens coach Mike Sullivan. "It was the turning point of the game."
Indeed it was.
Less than a minute later, Schultz executed a high flip to Washington ice, putting enough air underneath it that Crosby was able to catch up with it and beat Braden Holtby through the five-hole, tying the game at 2-2 at 13:24.
"At first I didn't think it was going to be a breakaway," explains Holtby, "so I was kind of playing it a little more as if it was going to be a battle or a quick shot. He got caught kind of flat-footed, and the way he was coming across, I didn't think he would have any room to get his stick on it through the middle; I thought he would have to go around. If I could get him off balance, I thought I could stop him from doing that, since he was flat-footed. I haven't seen it again; I'm not sure if he had more room than I thought."
Thirty-one seconds after the tying goal, Backstrom was boxed for tripping and the Pens took the lead on the ensuing power play, Crosby notching his second of the night off a Phil Kessel feed at 14:25.
After being held to three shots on net at five-on-five over a span of 19 minutes and 51 seconds, the Caps left the door ajar and Pittsburgh kicked it open, scoring three times on three shots on net in a span of just 108 seconds. In doing so, the Pens wrested control of the game from the Caps, and they never relinquished that lead.

Washington continued to generate some chances late in the second and into the third, but again they were just off on the best of their looks at the Pittsburgh net. Ovechkin missed the net on a third prime chance, Andre Burakovsky and T.J. Oshie both hit posts, and things turned in a southerly direction once again in the third when the Caps took a bench minor for too many men on the ice. The Caps incurred the violation while in possession of the puck behind their own net, as they were preparing to set up a breakout.
Pittsburgh netted its second power-play goal of the game - and its fourth unanswered goal - on the ensuing power play; Kessel scoring at 11:56 to make it a 4-2 game.
After the Pens were also guilty of too many men, the Caps pulled to within one on a power play of their own, Carlson putting back the rebound of an Ovechkin shot. The Caps' captain picked up the 1,200th point of his NHL career on the play, doing so minutes after Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin recorded his 1,000th point with an assist on Kessel's goal.
That was as close as the Caps got; McCann made it 5-3 with a late empty-netter, pulling the Pens to within four points of Washington in the Metropolitan Division standings with a dozen games to go.
"It is controllable, that's the problem," says Holtby of the Caps losing a game they seemed to have well in hand. "We know that they play that way. They don't waste any shots; they don't waste any opportunities. So it's first goal, second goal - the third one, he fans on it and gets it in a lucky spot. Sometimes, you just have to stick with it. We just came up a little short."