Beset by injuries and limited flexibility because of salary cap constraints, the Washington Capitals would lose game number two in a row, 4-2, to the New York Rangers. The loss drops the Caps (6-2-3) into third place in the Mass Mutual East Division.
With both Justin Schultz and Lars Eller still sidelined by injuries and Evgeny Kuznetsov remaining in Covid protocol, Washington was forced to play 11 forwards and seven defensemen. The unusual line up led to uneven, inconsistent play as head coach Peter Laviolette had to mix and match his offensive combinations.
Alex Ovechkin was one of the Capitals bright spots, scoring his 709th career goal to pass former Capitals player Mike Gartner. Ovechkin now trails Phil Esposito by eight goals on the list for sixth place.
“It’s great to move on. I’m not done yet. Just try to enjoy my time right now,” Ovechkin said after the game. “Sucks we didn’t get the points, but at the beginning of the year, we just try to find our game. I think the time we play well, we play good, then we stop playing, and it costs us points, and it costs us games.”
The Capitals fell behind early as the Rangers took an early 1-0 lead on a goal from Ryan Strome less than two minutes to start the game. Defenseman Anthony Bitetto gave New York a 2-0 lead midway through the first on an assist from Kevin Rooney.
An early-season problem for the Caps has been the possession in the offensive end, and once again tonight, Washington was frustrated by a defense that didn’t let its skaters find the open man.
“It’s something we’ve talked about a lot. When the play needs to be made when they don’t need to be made, valuing possession,” said Laviolette. “The minute we force something or the minute we look to go through the middle of the ice when there’s nothing there typically, it means we turn around and go play defense.”
Washington got on the scoreboard in the second as Carl Hagelin scored his first goal of the year off a tip-in of a Garnett Hathaway shot. The Rangers went back up by two at the 7:55 mark of the second on Strome’s second goal of the game.
Trailing 3-2 after Ovechkin’s goal, the Caps pulled goalie Vitek Vanecek (30 saves) but couldn’t convert on the six-on-five advantage. Pavel Buchnevich clinched the game with an empty-net goal.
“We’re playing the type of teams that are extremely good teams,” said Carl Hagelin. “If you don’t have 100 percent effort or if you aren’t into the game full, it’s going to be hard periods, and we’ve done that too much where we haven’t played a 60-minute game yet. It’s time to adjust and figure that one out because I know if we do, we’re a very successful team, so we’ve got to get to that.”