The Washington Capitals have officially come back to earth. Playing their first game in almost a week, the Caps dropped a 6-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins Sunday afternoon. The loss, Washington’s fourth in a row, drops them to fourth place in the East Division, ahead of the Penguins by percentage points in the race for the division’s final playoff spot.
For the second game in a row, the defense struggled. After falling behind 1-0 on a goal from Evgeny Kuznetsov, Pittsburgh tied the score on a pretty give and go from Mike Matheson to Brian Rust at the 10:29 mark of the first period.
The Pens went ahead 30-seconds later when Brandon Tanev beat goalie Vitek Vanecek. The go-ahead goal was a product of the Caps losing the faceoff, something they did with frequency Sunday (winning 62% of them), and Vanecek not clearing a rebound.
“There’s always a level of concern when you drop four in a row,” said head coach Peter Laviolette. “We’re here to win hockey games. We’ve got to get it back on track. There’s always a level of concern.”
The Caps have a list of issues to address. Vanecek has been unimpressive in his last two starts, although two of Sunday’s goals were empty netters. Faceoffs are a problem as well. Backstrom is one of the team’s go-to players in that department and knows the current production level isn’t good enough.
“Sometimes you’re just overthinking stuff,” he said. “It’s the same scenario if you haven’t scored a goal in a while, you’re thinking about it too much, it’s the same thing in the faceoff circle. I know we personally I’ve got to be better.”
Jakob Vrana tied the score 2-2 to open the second period with his fourth goal of the season. The Penguins countered with Rust’s second of the game and Jake Guentzel’s fifth of the year. Guentzel’s goal gave Pittsburgh a two-goal lead for the first time this season.
“It’s really frustrating,” Vrana said. “It feels like we can’t let these games slipping away here. It’s a good thing we have a practice tomorrow. Got to work on somethings and clear out some things and make sure we are going to be more prepared for the next game here.”
Backstrom cut the lead to 4-3 late in the second period, but the offense couldn’t mount a comeback in the third.
“There’s some mistakes we’re making over and over,” Laviolette said after the game. “I don’t know if they are the ones that are leading to the goals. I think it’s different. We’ll continue to look at it. I don’t think there was a ton that we were overwhelmed offensively, but the one we gave up, we have to do a better job.”
The Capitals will practice in Pittsburgh Monday before playing the Penguins again Tuesday night.