Shorthanded team loses lead, game to Devils in shootout, 3-2 They were down to four healthy defensemen and a versatile forward gamely trying his hand on the blueline. Playing for the second time in as many nights that is far from a winning recipe in the NHL.
And so for the second Saturday in a row the Capitals failed to hold an early two-goal lead, this time losing to the New Jersey Devils 3-2 in a shootout at Verizon Center.
Petr Sykora scored off a faceoff win at 12 minutes, 18 seconds of the second period and Ryan Carter tallied with just 1:06 left before that intermission to tie the game and give the Devils (8-6-1, 17 points) a chance in extra time.
Washington defenseman Dennis Wideman saw his rocket shot tick off New Jersey goalie Johan Hedberg early in the overtime period. Minutes later, Zach Parise and David Clarkson each beat Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth in the shootout to lift their team to the victory. Washington (10-4-1, 21 points) lost for the first time in five games this season that have gone to either overtime or the shootout.
“It’s a double-edged sword. Will you take a point? Yes,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. “But when you have a 2-0 lead will you take a point? No. Because the goals they scored…were mistakes on our part, if we don’t make those mistakes – because [goalie Michal Neuvirth] was on the top of his game – it probably would have been a 2-0 game.”
Indeed, Neuvirth finished with 17 saves on just 19 New Jersey shots as a combination of rough ice conditions – thanks in large part to a concert on Friday plus a Saturday afternoon Georgetown basketball game – and tired legs for both teams left offensive chances few and far between. In a span bridging the second and third periods, Washington went 20:51 without a single shot on Hedberg, who finished with 15 saves on 17 shots. That was a season low in shots on goal for the Caps, who have been held under 25 shots in just three of 15 games this season. One of those happened to be Friday against New Jersey (20 shots). “They made it tough for us to get through the neutral zone,” said Brooks Laich, who because of injuries was forced to move from forward to defense to start the game. “And then also I thought their defenseman did a great job winning battles when we would dump it in. The strength of our team should be our forecheck. But we weren’t able to establish that tonight.”
Troy Brouwer scored an early first-period goal for Washington on an ugly New Jersey turnover and Jason Chimera deflected home a John Carlson shot at 16:10 of that period to make it 2-0. One night after the Caps beat the Devils in Newark 3-1 it looked like they were on the way to another easy win.
But Washington spent much of Friday’s game playing shorthanded after defenseman Mike Green went down with a lower-body injury. Boudreau also made limited use of his bench in that contest – and sat forward Alex Semin for long stretches – so most of his top players logged heavy minutes.
The team received more bad news when defenseman John Erskine came up “a little sore”, Boudreau said in his pregame chat with the media. Erskine was seen with an ice pack on his left shoulder in the locker room after Friday’s game, but that could have been just routine maintenance considering he had surgery on that same shoulder in May and didn’t play his first game this season until Nov. 1.
Either way, his injury left the Caps shorthanded again with just five healthy defensemen. This time the solution was to move Laich to the blueline. He’s done that in the past and can handle himself. Laich did so again on Saturday. But it’s far from ideal. And things took another bad turn when defenseman Roman Hamrlik left the contest after a cross check in the second period. He missed exactly nine minutes of game action and then returned for two shifts late in the third period. But after leaving the ice with 1:27 left in the second he didn’t return. Boudreau listed him as day-to-day.
That made life difficult for Laich and the remaining four healthy defensemen – Carlson, Karl Alzner, Jeff Schultz and Dennis Wideman, who played a game-high 33:52 – and chuckled when told that by a reporter afterwards.
“I was starting to get a little tuckered at the end,” Wideman said. “But I think that when stuff like that happens when there’s injuries you just have to try not to push it too much, try not to get out of position, try not to get caught and conserve what you can.”
