Fatigue and travel wore on the Capitals in a 3-2 defeat.
The Washington Capitals’ 3-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawk is really a bit of a two-sided coin.
On one hand, the Capitals took a 2-0 lead into the third period against Chicago, and after a shaky second, surrendered three unanswered goals in the third en route to a loss.
Looking at the stats on paper, though, they don't exactly paint a picture of what went down.
So let's dissect last night’s loss to the Bedards Blackhawks, and then leave it in the past where it belongs.
Good-ish Start, Bad-ish Finish For The Capitals
The Capitals certainly set themselves up for success early on.
A misplayed puck by Louis Crevier was poked free by Pierre-Luc Dubois who barely poked it by Arvid Soderblom for his fifth of the season (and 150th of his career), giving the Caps an early 1-0 lead.
Shortly thereafter, Andrew Mangiapane pulled off a highlight reel goal for his seventh of the year — one that will certainly be played a thousand more times over the course of the season — to make it 2-0 (Not to take away anything from Mangiapane, as this is truly a filthy goal. I just hope T.J. Brodie’s ankles are okay).
Going into the second up by two was a great situation for the Capitals to find themselves in, especially considering it doesn’t paint the entire picture of the play in the first.
The Blackhawks came out with a 9-5 shot advantage, and a Corsi-for of 64.71 percent to the Caps 35.2 percent. Ultimately, Washington was just okay in the first, but needed to tighten a few things up a bit.
This wouldn’t be the case, as we all know now.
The second period saw the Blackhawks wearing down the Capitals defense, throwing nine shots at Logan Thompson while 11 more shot attempts missed the net or ended up blocked. All the while, Washington fell into sloppier habits.
By the time the third period started and Chicago began breaking through on the scoreboard, the Capitals' sluggish play really stood out, from the sloppy Jakob Chychrun pass that led to Ilya Mikheyev’s shorthanded goal to Ryan Donato outworking the defense and powering to the net for the game-winner.
Looking at the advanced numbers, though, Washington wasn't horrible; the team got plenty of shots through on Soderblom and generated a number of high-quality chances, but the Swedish netminder was at the top of his game.
Ultimately, hockey is a game of opportunity and after capitalizing on two impressive individual plays early on, Chicago took advantage and rode it to a win.
"Sloppy," John Carlson said of the loss. "We were a little bit disjointed and a little bit disoriented."
Power Play Struggles Evident
Not a whole lot else to say here, really.
While the Capitals' penalty kill continues to do extremely well and went 4-for-4 against Connor Bedard's group, the power play unit is in need of some attention.
Washington went 0-for-3 on the man advantage and failed to capitalize when it mattered most, and couldn't do much with regard to connecting passes or executing.
As I said once recently, this is a team with too much talent to not be scoring on the man advantage more, let alone giving up shorthanded breaks.
No Reason to Panic
The important thing to remember after a game like last night is context.
Because, in the context of the whole season so far, this is a forgettable match for Washington that will hopefully only be remembered for that highlight-reel goal by Mangiapane and ultimately, be a learning lesson.
The Capitals were fatigued from playing the second game of a back-to-back and their fourth game in six nights, and they also dealt with travel issues that had them travelling from Dallas on the day of the game.
Fatigue and travel certainly wears on even the pros, even if coach Spencer Carbery wasn’t looking to use the travel as an excuse.
This team has shown such resiliency and strength all season, and there's no reason why the Capitals won’t shake this one off and come home having already moved on to the next one.
The Road — Well, Home — Ahead
Luckily, the Capitals get a couple of days to regroup before their next outing, this time at home against the formidable Carolina Hurricanes.
Carolina currently sits three points behind Washington in the standings, and is scoring at nearly the same pace as Washington per game (3.61 goals per game to D.C.’s 3.81).
Sloppy play won’t cut it against the Hurricanes, and Washington will need to tighten things up to avoid their first three-game losing streak of the season as Alex Ovechkin continues to ramp up his recovery.