Poor goaltending, defense doom Capitals in 7-4 loss to Philadelphia

For the first month of the season, Vitek Vanecek was the best rookie in the NHL. The second month, however, has been another story. Vanecek gave up four goals in less than two periods Sunday as the Washington Capitals lost their third straight game Sunday, 7-4 to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Veteran Craig Anderson replaced Vanecek. The 39-year-old stabilized the defense for a while. Still, in the end, the Flyers offense overwhelmed the undermanned Capitals, who were playing without T.J. Oshie and Justin Schultz due to injury and Evgeny Kuznetzov, Ilya Samsonov, and Jakob Vrana due to Covid protocol.

The Caps also wasted Alex Ovechkin’s best offensive outing of the year. Ovechkin scored twice and had two assists and now has 711 career goals, placing him just seven behind Phil Esposito.

Despite the loss, Ovechkin sounded optimistic about where the team is after 12 games.

“We all understand we are in a tough situation. A couple of guys miss games through injury protocol whatever,” he said in a post-game video conference with reporters. “I think lots of guys step up and play good hockey.”

Defensively, the Caps struggled, giving up the seven goals on just 23 shots. After taking a 2-0 lead in the first period, Philadelphia’s Scott Laughton scored twice, once at the end of the first period and once early in the second, to tie the game 2-2.

The game seesawed back and forth on Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom goals. In the second period, the Flyers countered with goals from Robert Hagg and James Van Riemsdyk.

The Flyers took control in the third when Sean Couturier scored to put Philadelphia ahead for good, 5-4. Laughton got a hat trick goal at the 17:51 mark of the third period. Couturier added an empty-net goal at the 18:38 mark.

“Obviously, the loss is frustrating,” said Caps forward Tom Wilson, who scored his fifth goal of the season in the first. “I think we played fairly well tonight. We just didn’t manage those big goals or moments, I guess. They tied it up quite a few times and stayed in it.”

Head coach Peter Laviolette said the defensive effort has to be better when the two teams meet on Tuesday night again.

“We let in too many goals tonight. We scored enough to win,” he said. “I thought we generated enough chances I thought we would have scored more. There were a few that didn’t bounce our way. I don’t think it was a barrage coming at us defensively, but they capitalized on the chances they did get.”

With the loss, the Capitals fall to 6-3-3 and third place in the Mass Mutual East Division. The Caps are three points behind Philadelphia and Boston for first place.