The Washington Capitals pulled off another nearly-successful comeback effort Saturday night. Down 4-2 in the third period to the Winnipeg Jets, Tom Wilson and Alex Ovechkin scored to force overtime — just two days after the Caps recovered from another two-goal lead in the last 10 minutes of regulation against the Ottawa Senators.
Tom Wilson spoke to the Caps’ resilience after Saturday’s loss, pointing to their confidence that no game is ever over until the final buzzer.
“We’ve been a close group,” he said. “We’ve said it day one. So I think when you can look at the guy next to you and believe, and expect that we’re going to be in the game if we fall behind, it’s something that’s dangerous down the stretch.
“Guys that can pull together and depend on each other. I think when we fall behind, we know we’re not at our best and we look at each other and expect more. And more often than not, we get back to work and get it done. So obviously not what we wanted to end it, but good to see the character come back there.”
Head coach Spencer Carbery painted a somewhat less rosy picture of the Capitals’ performance, highlighting a series of errors that turned what could have been a regulation win into an overtime loss.
“To get that game tied and to score four against that team and that goaltender, there’s positives that we’ll take out of that game,” he said. “I just thought we could have done a better job in a lot of different scenarios to win that hockey game in regulation. We just didn’t. And right to the end — we make a silly mental mistake in overtime and let Morrissey beat us off the wall, which, that’s uncharacteristic. That’s not us.”
Another team could have easily lost faith after the first period as the top team in the East faced the top team in the West. Winnipeg scored two goals just 3:28 apart and ended the period with a 13-6 lead in shots. Pierre-Luc Dubois noted how the Caps struggled to get their feet under themselves in their first period back at Capital One Arena since January 18.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a few times and against good teams, it’s in the back of your net,” he said, later adding, “When you come back from a long road trip on the West Coast, the toughest game of the road trip is the first game back, really. You go to bed at 2, 3 AM, you wake up, you have one day, no practice, and then you’re in a game. So it was tough. I thought we just seemed a little tired and not necessarily into the game yet.”
But instead of wallowing, the Capitals came back stronger in the last 40 minutes of the game.
“And then we came in here and didn’t panic,” Dubois said. “We knew that we had better and that’s what we did.”
He added, “It’s funny to say, but we’ve had some pretty bad periods this year, and we’ve have a lot more good periods this year. When it’s the first period and everybody in here knows that we have better, nobody in here’s confidence is down or is panicking because we know what we can do. And we did that in the second, we did that in the third. Nobody came in here and started yelling or anything. It was just — we know what we can do. That’s a key thing for us this year.”
Dubois himself broke the ice for Washington just 1:12 into the second period, with Taylor Raddysh, Wilson, and Ovechkin all adding a goal to push the game past regulation.
Despite the relatively high offense, Ovechkin said the game reminded him of a postseason battle.
“I think first period [we were] a little bit maybe afraid to do something out there but in the second you can see we relaxed and controlling the puck more,” he said. “Obviously, it was kind of a playoff-style game — lots of battles, lots of hits, not too many penalties, and you just have to find a way to generate chances.
“I think second period first shift we put the puck deep, forecheck, get it back, and then second shift we score goal. It’s kind of [gives] us more confidence.”
The Capitals outshot the Jets in both the second and third periods, ending regulation with shots tied 28-28. At five-on-five in the third period, they outchanced the Jets 11-5 and earned all four high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick.
In overtime, however, the Jets wouldn’t take long to strike. Mark Scheifele passed the puck to Josh Morrissey from behind the net, giving Morrissey his second goal of the night to end the game just 1:57 into extra time.
With the victory, the Jets held on to their place atop the league standings, with 77 points to the Capitals 75. The two teams are neck-and-neck for the NHL lead, with the next-best Vegas Golden Knights seven points behind Washington.
But though the Caps were plenty frustrated that they’d given up the second point — Connor McMichael reportedly broke his stick after allowing Morrissey to score the game-winner — their ability to come back from the brink of defeat sends a message.
“I think we’ve shown that all year that we never give up, we never panic,” Dubois said. “And against a pretty good team tonight, we did that again.”
“It’s nice to prove to ourselves that we can play with the top in the league and that we belong,” said Wilson.
