Sharks Swarm Caps, 4-1

Playing for the second time in less than 24 hours after an uplifting 2-1 win over the Bruins in Boston on Saturday, the Caps were unable to bring any of the momentum and energy from Saturday's victory into Sunday's home game against San Jose. The result was a listless 4-1 loss to the Sharks on Sunday afternoon at Capital One Arena.

Erik Karlsson led the Sharks' attack with a goal and three points in Sunday's win for San Jose, which will now head home with a 3-3-2 record after playing each of its last eight games on the road.
Washington never trailed in Saturday's win over the over the League's best team in its toughest building, but it fell behind the Sharks on San Jose's first shot on net of the afternoon. The Caps spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the Sharks and the game, but it proved to be too tall a task for a team whose offense has withered of late. The Caps are now 1-5-1 in the second half of back-to-back games this season.
"With regard to tonight, we weren't good enough," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "They were better than us in a lot of different areas. We were reaching, we weren't working and we turned the puck over too many times. And we just weren't good enough to win a game. "
Sunday's game marks the ninth time in the last 14 games that Washington has not been able to muster more than two goals in a game, and it owns a 6-8-0 record over that span.
Before Sunday's game was three minutes old, Washington was in a hole from which it would not be able to emerge. The Caps turned it over in neutral ice, and the Sharks turned it around in transition. From the left dot, Evgeni Svechnikov beat Charlie Lindgren at 2:54 of the first to lift San Jose to an early lead.
"The way the game started for myself with that first goal, I think that didn't set the team up, didn't put them in a good spot, down 1-0," says Lindgren. "Obviously, that one I want to have. Once you're down 1-0, you're trying to battle back."
Offense has been hard to come by for the Capitals of late, and they weren't able to muster much in the way of an attack in the first frame despite having a pair of power play opportunities.
In the second period, the Caps needed Lindgren to make a big early stop on a Timo Meier shot from the slot following another Washington turnover, but the Sharks did eventually double their lead on a power play in the middle of the middle period.
Lindgren stopped Erik Karlsson's center point drive, but Alexander Barabonov was right at the top of the paint to put back the rebound, making it a 2-0 contest at 9:04.
Washington spent the second period defending and seeking a spark of any kind, which it finally managed to find late in the frame. From deep in his own end, Caps defenseman Erik Gustafsson sent Evgeny Kuznetsov into San Jose ice with a nifty indirect feed off the wall in neutral ice. Kuznestov carried down the right wing wall, and as Sharks defender Scott Harrington lost his stick, Kuznetsov made a power move to the net and tucked the puck behind Kaapo Kahkonen to cut the lead to 2-1 at 16:56.
"Just going to the net," says Kuznetsov of his goal. "I guess when you go to the net, good things happen. I thought that goal was going to give us momentum, but unfortunately it wasn't."
Kahkonen was shaken up on the play, and he departed for the afternoon with an upper body injury at the next stoppage, eight seconds later. Aaron Dell came on it relief and finished up.
Over the years, the Caps have mustered many comebacks from multi-goal deficits after lackluster starts, but this would not be one of those afternoons. The Caps just didn't seem to have the energy to build off the Kuznetsov goal, even against a San Jose team that entered the game with an average of 3.74 goals against per game, the fourth worst rate in the League this season.
With just under seven minutes remaining in the third, the Sharks restored their two-goal lead, making it 3-1 on a floating Karlsson shot from the right half wall, just above the circle.
"I saw he shot it, and then it hit a stick," says Lindgren of the Karlsson goal. "It was a seeing eye shot, and that's it. I'm disappointed in that, too."
Tomas Hertl accounted for the 4-1 final with an empty-net goal with 2:11 remaining.
Saturday's win in Boston gave the Caps consecutive victories for the first time since a five-game winning run was halted in late December. But the Caps could not stretch that modest streak to three on Sunday.
"I think it's really disappointing," says Lindgren of the loss. "[Saturday] was an awesome win for our group. I thought we played a really good game against the best team in the League, standings-wise. And we have an opportunity to come home, and we just didn't get it done."
"The successful game is fast and north, not east and west, and slow," says Laviolette. "It's pucks and people to the net, and that's when we're at our best. That's when we are on the attack and moving in the right direction.
"The other way is back to play defense, stopping and transitioning the other way. And so we've got to get back to a quicker pace, a quicker mindset, a delivery mindset. Get it out, get it through, get it in, attack, forecheck, pound the net. And tonight, we didn't have that in our game. At all."