Caps Take on Pens Again
Caps finish two-game journey to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, seeking to halt a four-game slide
The Capitals conclude a two-game trip to Pittsburgh on Tuesday when they face the Penguins once again in the Steel City, aiming to halt a four-game losing streak. Tuesday's contest is the Caps' fourth and final game in Pittsburgh this season, and Washington is still seeking its first victory at PPG Paints Arena in 2020-21.
It's not that the Caps have played poorly or been blown out in any of their losses here this season; they've actually held leads in each of those three games. But consistency over a full 60 minutes continues to elude the Capitals, and some breaks and bounces that were going in their favor earlier in the season seem to have dried up thus far this month.
Playing their first game after a trio of COVID-related postponements left them idle for a full week, the Caps fell 6-3 to the Penguins on Sunday in the opener of this two-game journey to western Pennsylvania. That final score isn't indicative of the course of the game, as Pittsburgh's final two goals were of the empty-net variety. Washington has yielded at least one empty-net goal against in each of its four straight losses, and each of those four defeats was a one-goal contest until the final three minutes of the third period.
"[I'm] concerned about every game," said Caps defenseman John Carlson in the wake of Sunday's setback. "But certainly I'm not concerned about our team. We've got the pieces in there that know what to do, and we've just got to piggyback each other a little bit better.
"I feel like lot of parts of our game are really solid right now. In the last couple of games, we haven't really had too many long bouts of the game coming down our throat too much. I think it's just bearing down a bit more here and there in different situations. It seems like [the opposition] get[s] a jump and they start bringing it a little bit, and they score.
"We're losing, and no one is accepting that, but I think our game is getting better. It feels like we're going longer stretches of playing the right way and denying [the opposition] the right way. It seems like those little parts of our game right now, whether it's attention to detail or effort or whatever it is, I think those lapses that we constantly talk about we need to get better at."
It's been just over two years since the Caps lost four straight games in regulation. In the midst of a seven-game slide (0-5-2) from Jan. 12-23, 2019, the Capitals lost four straight in regulation from Jan. 14-20 of that year, getting outscored 20-8 without counting empty-net goals.
Washington has been far more competitive in its current streak. Empty-net goals aside, the Caps have been outscored 17-12 over the course of their current stretch of four straight losses. Overall on the season, the Capitals rank ninth in the league in time spent leading on the scoreboard (289:29), and 10 of the teams behind them in that category have played more games.
"There's always a level of concern when you drop four in a row," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We're here to win hockey games. We've got to get it back on track. There is always a level of concern; you drop one and there's a level of concern. You're here to win hockey games."
The first three of the losses came during a stretch when Washington was playing without a number of key players because of injuries and COVID protocol, and while the lineup was in a state of flux from night to night. For eight straight games, the Caps put out a lineup different from that of the previous game, and they picked up points in each of the first five (4-0-1).
The staff and the players know they're capable of playing better, but they also believe they are playing better than they were earlier in the season. While results aren't always indicative of quality of play in the NHL, they do determine which teams make the playoffs.
"I'm going to look back at it," said Laviolette after Sunday's loss, "and there are going to be things that we can do better, and we'll continue to work at it to be better defensively. But again, from the beginning of the year, I think we were giving up more numbers, more quality [scoring chances], more zone time [then]. But at the end of the day, the [scoring] chances have got to continue to be worked on and be eliminated. There's four goals against; we've got to do a better job."
Sunday's game was Pittsburgh's first home game since Jan. 24, and the victory maintains the Penguins' perfect mark (5-0-0) on home ice this season. The Pens also ended an 0-for-21 drought on the power play in Sunday's game, getting a Bryan Rust goal with the extra man in the second period.
Each of the Pens' seven victories this season has come in a game in which they trailed at some point, and they've victimized the Caps three times. Pittsburgh becomes the fourth team in league history to win seven or more straight games while coming from behind to start a season. The 2013-14 Buffalo Sabres set the standard with 10 such games.
