Less than 48 hours after achieving one of their most uplifting victories of the season in a 5-2 triumph over the Philadelphia Flyers, the Caps suffered one of their most puzzling and agonizing defeats of the season, a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday afternoon at Capital One Arena.
In Friday’s win over the Flyers, the Caps came out flat in the first frame and dug themselves a two-goal hole before rallying for five unanswered goals in the game’s final 40 minutes. In Sunday’s game, Washington again dug itself a two-goal ditch, but they waited until the third period to pull it together. By that time, the deficit was three goals, and they couldn’t dig their way out.
“I’m trying to remember,” begins Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, “but given the circumstances, for sure that’s the most disappointing game I’ve coached this year, this team. In the third period, I will give our guys some credit for that 20 minutes. But the first two periods were – that’s the worst we’ve played all year.
“We couldn’t handle the puck, we turned it over constantly. We fed their transition, we were getting guys in behind us. It’s hard to explain.”
An early Washington turnover in Arizona ice enabled Coyotes rookie Logan Cooley to get behind the defense, skate in on a breakaway and give his team a 1-0 lead at 7:33 of the first.
In the second period, the Caps had all four wheels on the rumble strips. Washington took four minor penalties, the latter two of which were both for “abuse of officials.” Both of those calls went against alternate captains, John Carlson and Tom Wilson. And Wilson had a 10-minute misconduct tacked onto his sentence, putting him out of action for a big chunk of the third period as the Caps were vying for another comeback victory.
Arizona – which ended a 14-game losing skid (0-12-2) on Friday night in Ottawa – took full advantage of the Caps’ largesse, getting power-play goals from Jason Zucker and Dylan Guenther in the middle period.
After Zucker scored to make it 2-0 at 4:06 of the second, the Caps answered back with an extra-man tally of their own less than two minutes later. Sonny Milano went to the net and chipped home a perfectly delivered Alex Ovechkin feed from the right point, making it a 2-1 game at 6:02.
But that proved to be the high-water mark of the afternoon for Washington. Arizona restored its two-goal cushion on the very next shift, getting a goal from blueliner Michael Kesselring.
“Just a terrible read through the neutral zone, our fourth line, to give that back right there against their fourth line,” laments Carbery of the Kesselring goal, which stands up as the game-winner. “I felt like I could get those guys out there after a power play shift against [Arizona center Jack] McBain, [Liam] O’Brien. And we just turn it over through the neutral zone. It’s coming back at us, and it’s in the back of our net.”
Washington managed a meager total of five shot attempts at 5-on-5 in the middle period, but they played less than half of that period at even strength because of all the special teams play.
“We just were overcomplicating things,” says Caps’ winger Max Pacioretty. “Whenever we run into problems this year, it’s because we’re not playing predictable. We’ve only had success this last stretch here because we’re playing north, and everyone knows what we’re doing with the puck; it’s going on net, we’re creating chances, and we’re bailing each other out when there is a breakdown. And that just wasn’t there for the first 40.”
Ten seconds into the third, Anthony Mantha gave Washington some life, scoring his 20th goal of the season on the power play to make it 4-2. Mantha has reached the 20-goal level for the third time in his NHL career, his first time as a Capital, and for the first time since 2018-19.
“It’s a good milestone,” says Mantha. “And it’s a good comeback from last year. But there 8is plenty of hockey to be played and I need to keep pushing forward.”
Although the Caps pushed and got pucks to the net in the third period, they couldn’t solve Coyotes’ goalie Karel Vejmelka, who stopped all eight third-period shots after Mantha’s marker.
Nick Schmaltz accounted for the 5-2 final with a late empty-net goal.
Arizona came to town with just five wins since the turn of the calendar and nine road wins all season, but they drubbed the Caps twice this season, 6-0 and 5-2. Arizona has now won five of its last six visits to the District, and they’ll head home with a modest two-game winning spree after halting a losing slide that stretched over 38 days.
“I think it’s a good trip,” says Coyotes’ coach Andre Tourigny. “The first three games, we played really well; we got only one point. I don’t think we played as good the last two, but we found a way to win.”
And the Caps found a way to lose a game they really needed to have.
