WASHINGTON — It's been a series of ups and downs for the Washington Capitals of late, and Thursday was no different, this time, another low in a series of peaks and valleys.

Though Ryan Leonard helped spark the Capitals in the third, it was too little, too late, and a sloppy second period ultimately proved costly in a 3-2 loss to the Sharks.

After going up 1-0 on the power play thanks to Dylan Strome, who spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday thinking of ways to improve the man advantage, the Capitals lost quite a bit of momentum.

Shortly after Strome's goal, Dmitry Orlov beat Jakob Chychrun to the puck along the boards, and after Nic Dowd ran into Chychrun, found Zack Ostapchuk in front to even the score at 1. Just 1:26 later, Pavol Regenda stripped Strome of the puck and fed a streaking Collin Graf to give the Sharks the 2-1 lead. It took just 1:20 minutes for Regenda to get one of his own and extend the lead to 3-1.

B the end of the second, San Jose had outshot D.C. 12-4 in the middle frame, and was leading 22-9 overall in shots on goal. It was a lifeless period overall, and it proved costly.

With the Capitals needing a spark, coach Spencer Carbery got out the blender and changed up the lines, moving Ryan Leonard up to work with Connor McMichael and Anthony Beauvillier. He capitalized on that opportunity right away.

Leonard made a great move to cut to the inside, and then fired a shot top shelf glove side to beat Alex Nedeljkovic and make it a 3-2 game.

It jump-started an impressive push where Washington outshot San Jose 14-3 in the third and pulled the goalie early to try and even the score.

Ultimately, despite the furious push, it wasn't enough to complete the comeback this time around.