John Carlson scored for the Capitals, who are the second wild card from the East. Charlie Lindgren made 19 saves for Washington, which has scored five goals in the series.
“We just really, really are struggling to just make that play,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Just whatever it is, whether it’s shoot it in the back of the net when you’re in cold or whether it’s to make one, two, three, four passes. You see it on the power play big time.”
New York went 1-for-4 on the power play; Washington was 0-for-6 and allowed a short-handed goal.
“I think we can be on the same page a little more,” Capitals forward Tom Wilson said of the power play. “At the end of the day we scored one goal 5-on-5, and the power play needs to help out.”
Carlson gave Washington a 1-0 lead at 5:34 of the first period when he received a pass from T.J. Oshie on the rush and scored on a wrist shot over Shesterkin’s shoulder from the high slot.
Kreider scored 34 seconds later to tie it 1-1 at 6:08, redirecting Zibanejad’s shot from the point.
“I think throughout the series so far they’ve come up with the big moments,” Carlson said, “whether that’s answering, whether that’s coming up with the next one, stuff like that. It’s disappointing and nothing we can do about the past now.”
Goodrow scored short-handed at 6:08 to put the Rangers ahead 2-1. Trocheck entered the zone 2-on-1 and passed across to Goodrow, who beat Lindgren with a low wrist shot from the slot.
It was New York’s second consecutive game with a short-handed goal.
"I think we like to play aggressively and we're always on our toes, not sitting back on our heels,” Goodrow said. “It seems as of late we've gotten a lot of chances and obviously that's a bonus. The first job is to kill it off, but obviously [defenseman K’Andre Miller] got a big goal for us last game and tonight we got another one. It's been doing well for us."
Shesterkin made a right pad save to rob Max Pacioretty in front at 8:58 of the second period to keep the score 2-1.
