The Islanders played spoiler on Thursday night, ending the Capitals’ three-game winning streak with a shutout 3-0 victory.
The Islanders opened the game with a solid offensive push and scored just 22 seconds into the game on their first shot. From there, they never looked back. Former Capital netminder Semyon Varlamov led New York with 32 saves on 32 shots on net, and Center Brock Nelson with a goal and an assist in the game.
“We’re in game nine, and we’re not scoring 5-on-5 [goals] at all,” head Coach Spencer Carbery said postgame. “That’s not a small sample size.”
Carbery added, “That’s not two games, that’s not three games, that’s nine games. So other than the New Jersey game, you could say we are not finishing, finding ways to do all those things I
described – screen and tips, ugly goals, rebounds off a guy’s shin pads. The first goal New York scores, I don’t know, I’m trying to recall if we have one of those types of goals this year in nine
games, 27 periods. So those are the things that we have to get to, and we have to understand we have to do a better job of that. So, we have to get to work on that.”
Washington outshot the Islanders 32-21 and did a much better job at creating scoring opportunities than they had in previous games. But for the second time this season, the Capitals failed to score a single goal.
An odd trend in recent weeks for Washington also continued against the Islanders in the third period when TJ looked like a puck he deflected ended up in the back of the net. But for the
fourth time in the last five games for Carbery’s squad, a goal was taken off the board after an official review. A goaltender interference call took a Caps goal off the board halfway through the third period, keeping the sheet clean for Varlamov.
Thursday night was the first game for the Capitals without longtime Capitals Center Nicklas Backstrom after announcing this week that he would be stepping away from hockey to evaluate his future. Backstrom underwent hip resurfacing surgery in June of 2022 and has been slowed by injuries in recent years.
The Capitals return to the ice, hoping to rebound against the Blue Jackets on Saturday night.