The Washington Capitals are officially out of wiggle room.
After being shut out 4-0 in Game 3, the Capitals fell to the Carolina Hurricanes again in Game 4 on Monday night, this time losing 5-2. For the second game in a row, Washington came out strong to start the first period but began to stutter soon after, and the team failed to take advantage of their chances throughout the night.
“We’re giving ourselves some opportunities,” head coach Spencer Carbery said. “We’re just not executing, making the play, whatever you want to call it, and making some mistakes, and they’re capitalizing.”
The Capitals’ power plays in the defeat stood out as especially low points of the game, exemplified by the team’s performance late in the first period. Carolina earned an early lead when Shayne Gostisbehere struck just 10:24 into the game, but a double-minor high-sticking call to Jordan Martinook gave Washington a clear chance to level the score.
Instead, the only two shots during the four-minute power play came from the Hurricanes’ penalty-killing unit, and Seth Jarvis would make the game 2-0 less than a minute after Martinook left the box.
Carbery was visibly frustrated when asked about the sequence postgame.
“I saw what everybody else in the room saw. It was not good,” he said of the power play. “And so we made some adjustments, made some changes to personnel on it, but you can’t — their penalty kill is excellent, best in the league, has been for the last (five years), but it can’t look like that. It cannot look like that.”
Over four games, Washington has scored just twice on 12 power-play opportunities against the Hurricanes. Not only did the Capitals fail to tie the game during the double minor, but their listless power play failed to create meaningful pressure and only galvanized the Canes even further.
Tom Wilson highlighted the wasted opportunity to shift the game in their favor after the loss.
“Those moments are huge in the playoffs,” he said. “You’ve got to find a way to score. Simple as that. It’s not good enough. We’ve got to step up in that moment. It’s a huge turning point in the game. Special teams can be a momentum builder, as everybody knows. We’ve just got to find a way to pull the special teams our way a little bit.”
One of those two power-play goals came from Alex Ovechkin, who scored on a five-on-three in the third period. Though his goal on Monday night was classic Ovechkin, a perfectly-placed slapshot from the left circle, he thinks the Caps will need to aim messier if they want a fighting chance in the series.
“We had a pretty solid start,” he said. “If you look at last game and this game, we have opportunities to get the lead right away. But we just have to find a way to score a goal. Obviously, (Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen) is feeling it right now, but we have to find dirty goals. Rebound, redirected…When you have opportunity to shoot the puck, you have to find a way to put it on him and find the rebound and dirty pucks.
“How I said, we played pretty good for the first period. We just have to find a way to score. When you get the lead, it’s a totally different game.”
Andersen’s strong goaltending has been a significant obstacle for the Capitals over the series, but they’ve struggled to make his job especially difficult, leveling just 21 shots against him for a second-straight game on Monday. While rejecting the idea that shot volume was the Capitals’ primary problem, Carbery acknowledged they still needed to send more Andersen’s way.
“I don’t think it’s a massive issue, but there have been times where I’ve thought through this series, ‘Shoot the puck,’ in my head, which I’m sure maybe you have as well,” he said. “So there’s that. And then you’ve got to get your shot through, too. We get a ton of shots blocked that — those are good situations. You’ve got to find a way to get that puck through.”
The team launched an attempted comeback effort in the third, with a five-on-five marker from Jakob Chychrun and Ovechkin’s power-play tally each bringing the team within one. But both times, the Canes responded just minutes later to restore their two-goal lead.
“We showed a lot of fight, but we just can’t have the two-on-ones and relentless pressure after we score,” Dylan Strome said. “We’ve got to find a way to turn that into some momentum for us.”
Despite showing plenty of life in the final period, the Capitals couldn’t pull themselves out of the hole they’d dug earlier in the night.
“I think we played with a lot of desperation after that happened,” Connor McMichael remarked. “But…it’s too little, too late. If we play like that the whole game, I think good things will come. But we’ve got to find a way to sustain that pressure.”
The series will now shift back to Capital One Arena for Game 5 on Thursday as the Capitals attempt to keep their season alive. They’ll need to win three-straight elimination games to down the Hurricanes, but Wilson stressed focusing on the task at hand, taking the rest of the series one step at a time, and highlighted the wide-ranging contributions the team would need to come out on top.
“It’s going to have to be all four lines, one after another, pushing, pushing, pushing,” he said. “And we’re going to have to slowly try and push them out of the series. Obviously, our backs are against the wall. Next game is the biggest game. Start with the first period and go from there. It’s not going to be easy. They’re a hard-working team, but we’re going to have some fight here.”
The Capitals have spent most of the series on the back foot, but they’re not ready to give up yet. After spending most of the season trying to prove themselves, they don’t plan on going down easily.
“Win the next game,” McMichael said of the team’s mindset. “We’re going home. I really like our odds. Just win the next one and come back here and force a Game 7. That’s where we’re at.”
Asked what he expects from his players in a do-or-die Game 5, Carbery answered without a moment of hesitation.
“Oh, our guys will fight,” he said. “I don’t expect anything different. We’ve fought all year, and our guys, I know the character of our group.”
