Isles Double Up Caps, 8-4

For most of the last month and a half, the Caps have been rolling along efficiently; they've been winning games and picking up points with regularity while gradually improving the overall quality and structure of their game. But in the wake of Thursday's ugly 8-4 road loss to the Islanders, the Caps find themselves saddled with consecutive regulation setbacks for the first time since Feb. 14, and they've dropped two straight road games for the first time in the same time span.

More alarming though is the team's suddenly porous defense. The Islanders hung crooked numbers on the Caps in all three periods of Thursday's game, two nights after the Rangers scored four times on Washington in the third period of a 5-2 loss in Manhattan. Washington has been dented for a dozen goals in its last four periods of play and it has surrendered 17 goals in its last seven periods of action.
"I think anytime you lose hockey games it's a concern," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "You try to get better. There were things that we talked about. I do think we did things that shot ourselves in the foot tonight, with regard to puck movement or coverage or just certain situational things that I don't think we did a very good job on.
"Is it a concern? Everything's a concern, I guess; we just lost a game and gave up eight goals. So you look to fix that and be better the next night."
Recent vintage games between the Caps and the Islanders have typically been low-scoring, tight-checking affairs, but not Thursday's game. Right from the first minute of the game, it was wild and high-event game, and it stayed that way right to the bitter end.
Half a minute into the first, Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov had to depart after teammate T.J. Oshie inadvertently ran into him behind the Washington net. Vitek Vanecek came on in relief at that point.
Just 61 seconds into the game, the Caps jumped out to a 1-0 lead on their first shot on net of the night. From the right half wall, Tom Wilson put one on a tee for John Carlson, who ripped a shot home from the high slot to give Washington an early advantage.
The Isles answered back just after the five-minute mark, also scoring on their first shot on net of the night. Mathew Barzal carried into Washington ice with speed before dishing to Leo Komarov. The Caps left Jordan Eberle all alone on the weak side, and Komarov fed him perfectly to knot the game at 1-1 at 5:02 of the first.
The next 11 minutes were tame before a flurry of scoring activity late in the frame, most of it from the Islanders.
Barzal went coast-to-coast at 16:09 to make it 2-1, and Samsonov re-entered the game at the final television timeout of the first, with 3:04 left. Brock Nelson scored the first one on Samsonov at 17:32, making it 3-1 Isles after a Dmitry Orlov turnover behind the Washington net.
Just 22 seconds after the Nelson goal, Daniel Sprong made it 3-2 with a dart of a shot after Lars Eller won a left dot draw in Isles' ice. Having pulled to within a goal late in the period, the Caps couldn't keep it there. Barzal netted another, spinning and shooting to the far side to make it 4-2 with 1:07 left, the fourth goal by the two teams in a span of 2:44.
The second period started similarly. New York's Casey Cizikas made it a 5-2 game with a put-back of his own rebound at 3:03.
When the Isles were deemed guilty of having too many men on the ice, the Caps made it 5-3 on a favorable bounce off Oshie, who was credited with his second power-play goal in as many games at 6:47 of the second.
But again, the Isles answered back swiftly with another goal from their top line. Barzal fed Eberle on a 2-on-1 rush and the latter cashed in for his second of the night to make it 6-3 at 8:08.
Eberle's second goal finished off a flurry of offensive in which the Caps and Islanders combined for seven goals - five of them off New York sticks - in just under a dozen minutes.
The next 11 minutes were again quiet, but the Caps once again made it a two-goal game on Carlson's second of the night at 19:01 of the second. The Caps defenseman finished off a rush play with a back-door tap-in off some fine passing from Jakub Vrana and Sprong.
While the Caps were done scoring for the night at this point, New York was not. Josh Bailey made it 7-4 at 3:13 of the third and Barzal completed the third hat trick of his NHL career - and a five-point night - when he batted home a waist high shot on a midair puck at 18:54 of the third.
Frustration festered at the final buzzer when Caps defenseman Zdeno Chara dropped the mitts with Isles winger Matt Martin. These two teams meet again on the Island on Tuesday night in the finale of the Caps' current five-game road tour.
"These games are fun because you've got two good teams, two intense teams," says Islanders coach Barry Trotz. "Ideally you feel like you've got control, but this team that we played tonight, they've got some good players there with obviously [Alex] Ovechkin and [Evgeny] Kuznetsov and [Nicklas] Backstrom and Oshie, and Carlson on the back end. And Vrana is dangerous.
"They've got lots of weapons, so you're going to give up some stuff. You've just got to limit it as much as you can, and we were fortunate we were able to score a few goals tonight."