'Catastrophic mistakes' dooming Capitals

The dead-quiet Washington Capitals locker room following a 7-4 loss to the New Jersey Devils really said it all about their two-game sweep at the hands of their division rivals.

The Capitals weren't bad in their two-game set against the Devils, scoring 6 times on Connor Hellebuyck, which should be good enough for at least a standings point over 2 contests.

Problem is, they allowed 12 goals in those games, with a number of them being unforced errors created by guys out of position and blown coverage or not covering their man.

'This has been going on throughout the year, is our whole group. is not just the young guys, our whole group, we have to learn to play winning hockey for 60 minutes," Spencer Carbery said. "You can't make some of the mistakes that we make in situations, whether it's a penalty, whether it's Jack Hughes' line is on the ice, and we have a terrible turnover and a bad moment, whatever it might be, there's all these situations that you're going make mistakes in a game.

"But they can't be catastrophic, and that's where you have to learn to be a winning team in this league, to be an elite team in this league. You can't make catastrophic mistakes consistently through a 60-minute game."

Against a skilled team like the Devils, mistakes can be deadly, and while both games the Capitals held leads and seemed to have control of the contests and a chance to secure a win, a key mistake opened the door for New Jersey to get back in the game.

Washington gave New Jersey ample chances to get on the scoreboard, and they did - numerous times.

Devils were left standing alone untouched in front of the Washington net. Capitals were out of position and paid for being in the wrong spot. Pucks were redirected off players into their own net. Players knocked attackers into their own goaltender.

All of it added up to an ugly pair of losses in which the Capitals did some good things and played relatively well, but also gave up way too many goals to be rewarded.

"We did some good things tonight," a quiet Pierre-Luc Dubois said. "But, you know, some of the chances, it's just, you know, you gotta compete harder. I mean, there's not a bad team in this league, and, you know, you can't just outscore opponents every night. 


"We have to be held a higher standard and just go from here, but it's four big points against a Metro team we're not going get back, but we gotta move forward and find some positivity out of it."

Clearly, defensively the Capitals are having issues with coverage and not being where they need to be. The Devils took full advantage of these chances, and the opportunistic team walked away with a pair of divisional wins.

"It's just moments in those games that, you know, just an easy mistake that leads to a goal, or it leads to a penalty that leads to a goal. And, you know, we're better team than that, so ... it's frustrating," Dubois said.

On the horizon, change seems to be coming to the Capitals blueline. Both Rasmus Sandin and Vincent Desharnais were in blue no-contact jerseys this week, and will make the trip to Tampa on Tuesday for the Capitals' next game against the Lightning and seem closer to making a return to the lineup.

All the Capitals going forward is to look to cut down these errors which are ending up in the back of their net, which is particularly deadly against the league's best teams. 

"There's so much good in our game tonight, but at the same time, you know, key moments and little plays here and there that come back to bite us," Boone Jenner said.  "So, you know, we're going have to, you know, learn from it, you know, the hard way. these last two."