If the Washington Capitals are fortunate enough to make the revamped Stanley Cup Playoffs this year, they better hope there aren’t too many early weekend starts. In their last five matinee games, the Caps are 0-3-2. On Saturday, a sluggish start turned into an offensive blackout as the New York Rangers beat the Caps 4-1 at Capital One Arena.
The loss leaves Washington 8-5-3, tied for third place in the East Division with the New York Islanders. Washington’s good news is that the New Jersey Devils skate into D.C. Sunday, less than 24 hours after the final horn.
“Whether we didn’t have it or they were playing really good, I think we shot ourselves in the foot way too much to get ourselves going early on and kinda throughout the game, I didn’t like our response,” said defenseman John Carlson after the game. “It seemed like we turned the puck over a lot, including myself, whether we were, you know, making the wrong plays or trying to make the right plays we just didn’t execute.”
New York took the lead at the 14:57 mark of the first period on a power-play goal by Chris Kreider. Vitek Vanecek stopped a shot by Artemi Panarin, but the puck bounced right to Kreider, who scored from point-blank range.
New York stretched the lead to 2-0 five minutes into the second period on a goal from Alexis Lalafreniere. Less than 45 seconds later, Ryan Strome beat Vanecek to put the Blueshirts up 3-0.
“Kind of gets you on your heels a little bit, so I think they did a good job,” said Nick Jensen. “I think a lot of today was on us. We got to do better, not what they were doing to us.”
Washington cut the lead to 3-1 just before the second intermission as Dmitry Orlov scored his first goal of the year, beating Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin for the Caps only goal.
Washington pulled Vanecek with a little over three minutes to play after New York was called for a penalty.
The Rangers iced the game with an empty-net goal by Mika Zibanejad.
Initially, the Caps were supposed to play New Jersey Sunday night. However, the league moved the start-up to 2:00 pm because of problems with ice conditions in Lake Tahoe and the Honda Outdoor Series.
The Caps and Devils will now be televised nationally by NBC, while the ‘Outdoor Series’ game between Boston and Philadelphia will air on NBCSN at 7:30 pm.