Tough loss for the Capitals on Wednesday night.
The Washington Capitals looked well on their way to a second consecutive victory on Wednesday night, leading the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 late in the third period. But the Leafs came storming back, scoring two late in regulation before John Tavares potted the winner in overtime in the 4-3 final at Capital One Arena.
And Spencer Carbery was not at all happy with his team's performance afterwards.
“The second half of the game was … not good at all,” the Capitals head coach told reporters. “Embarrassing, for that matter. The way that game played out, just embarrassing. Flat out. That's unrecognizable from our team. Playing a team on [the second half of] a back-to-back, in the third period, the way that looked and losing the two-goal lead. Embarrassing on home ice.”
Washington led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-1 in the contest; Aliaksei Protas scored his team's last goal with 2:12 remaining in the second period, his sixth tally of the 2024-25 season.
William Nylander would make it 3-2 with 4:09 to play before Mitch Marner knotted things up with 48 seconds left in regulation. After Alex Ovechkin had a great chance in the extra frame, it was Tavares who iced it on a breakaway, slipping the puck through Logan Thompson's five-hole.
Wednesday's loss dropped the Capitals to 10-4-1 on the season and 7-2-1 on home ice, while the Maple Leafs improved to 10-6-2. It was almost a tale of two different games; the Capitals controlled 73.33% of the expected goals at five-on-five in the first period, while the Leafs got 59.87% in the second and 85.4% in the third, per Natural Stat Trick.
“We started to make some unacceptable plays we usually don’t make and it started to fall apart,” Protas said afterwards. “We had chances to close this game out and didn’t. It’s on us. We’ve got to move forward and learn from it.”
“Obviously feeling pretty good up 3-1,” echoed Dylan Strome, who scored Washington's second goal. “Made some mistakes. Just didn’t get the puck in deep.”
Despite the brutal collapse, it's still been an extremely encouraging start to the season for the Capitals.
Capitals are still off to a terrific start in 2024-25
Although they would have liked a different result on Wednesday night, Carbery's troops still have 10 wins through 15 games, good enough for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
After picking up a point, the Capitals are just three back of the New Jersey Devils for the top spot in the division — with four games in hand. Carbery looks like the right fit behind the bench; he guided Washington to a playoff berth in his first season at the helm in 2023-24.
Before taking the job as head coach in the nation's capital, Carbery was hired as an assistant coach in Toronto in July, 2021. He became the bench boss in Washington in May of 2023.
The Capitals will look for a better 60-minute effort against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Friday night. It's the first of a three-game western road trip that will also take the squad through Vegas and Utah over the weekend.
