The Washington Capitals, in an opening night rematch, once again could not keep up with the New Jersey Devils.
The Washington Capitals faltered to the New Jersey Devils by a final of 3-2 coming oh so close to beating the number two seeded team in the Metropolitan Divison to advance past both them and the New York Rangers. Their record falls ot 13-5-1 for 27 points.
Matt Roy would strike on the third shot of the game for his first goal as a member of the Washington Capitals to put the good guys up 1-0 at 13:52 of the first. Rasmus Sandin and Hendrix Lapierre assisted there. Sandin picked up his eighth assist on the primary while Lapierre added his third of the season.
The Devils responded with a goal by Tomas Tatar for his third of the season assisted by Erik Haula and Luke Hughes. 1-1 would be the score after one with the Devils leading in shots 13-3.
In the second the Devils took the lead by a former Capital in Brendan Dillon. Tatar would assist there at 7:08 in the middle period. Then the Devils power play struck in the form of a Dougie Hamilton goal assisted by Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier at 15:42, contributing to their already dangerous power play.
The Caps would trail 3-1 after a close period filled with a couple fights. Shots were 12-11 in favor of the Caps and Brandon Duhaime would drop the gloves against Jonathan Kovacevic. After Sandin tripped Bratt, Hishier and Connor McMichael would drop the gloves.
The chippiness would continue into the third period 28 seconds in as Nic Dowd was called for high sticking against Hishier to the displeasure of the fans. Caps though would respond with a power play goal from McMichael as Paul Cotter got called for slashing against Taylor Raddysh.
That would be as far as they'd get as they'd be unable to tie the score right before the period despite pulling Charlie Lindgren for an extra attacker with 38.9 seconds left in the game. The Caps led in shots 10-9 in the third period while the Devils led in shots overall 33-25.
The Devils lead the season series 2-1 with the road team winning each time. Caps will have a chance to do that again on Saturday night at 7 p.m. eastern. But before that game the Caps will practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Sunday at 11 a.m. before flying to Florida for a match at Amerant Bank Arena to take on the Panthers at 7 p.m. on Monumental Sports Network.
