They spent more than 10 minutes alone in their Verizon Center dressing room after this latest loss. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau was all set to deliver a stern post-game message to his team before one of his veteran players asked to handle that task instead.
It wasn’t the way Washington wanted to spend its final moments at home before immediately departing on a five-game road trip that includes a swing on the West Coast. But it was also a necessary step after an ugly 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon.
The Caps (29-17-10, 68 points) dropped their second consecutive game at Verizon Center after being outshot 15-7 in the second period and then allowing three third-period goals. By the end of the day Boudreau had spent much of a late timeout lambasting his players on the bench in full view of fans and television cameras before resorting to that time-honored coaching move: taking away ice time.
“Encouragement,” was the way forward Matt Hendricks — after a long pause — described the tone of the players-only meeting afterwards.
Andrei Loktionov, Michal Handzus and Jarret Stoll all scored for the Kings in the third period. Anze Kopitar had tied the game 1-1 at 10 minutes, 41 seconds of the second period. His tally erased the 1-0 lead Alex Ovechkin gave Washington just 66 seconds into the game — the fastest goal by the Caps this season. They didn’t do near enough to build on it, however, with 23 shots total and an 0-for-4 performance on the power play.
| Caps notes |
| » F Boyd Gordon was out of the lineup for the first time since Jan. 11 when he was still fighting a foot infection. D.J. King replaced him at left wing on the fourth line. |
| » Neither Brooks Laich nor Alex Semin played the final 6:04 of the contest. Both players were on the ice for two Kings goals. |
| » Defenseman Mike Green was back in the lineup after missing one game following a shot to the head last Sunday. He saw 22 minutes, 3 seconds of ice time against Los Angeles. |
“It’s time to start throwing the switch toward the playoffs. It’s like we’re waiting for something to happen,” said veteran forward Mike Knuble. “We’re entering the toughest part of the season and it’s going to be a real indicator if we’re a serious contender or not, quite honestly.”
The latest third-period meltdown came after the Caps allowed two goals in the final 10 minutes of a 2-0 loss to San Jose on Tuesday. Semyon Varlamov, who started in goal for the first time since last Friday, allowed four goals on 28 shots. Jonathan Bernier stopped 22 of 23 for the Kings.
“It never happens where you just flip a switch and it goes,” Boudreau said. “It comes from the beginning of the game to the end of the game working your rear end off. So if they’re waiting for some switch to magically appear it’s not going to happen.”
