ELMONT, N.Y — The trouble started for the Washington Capitals on the second shot of the game.
Ninety seconds into Friday’s matchup with the New York Islanders at UBS Arena, Islanders forward Brock Nelson fired a wrist shot that forced Washington goaltender Charlie Lindgren to make an awkward save, squeezing the puck between his glove and his blocker against his left shoulder. The officials had a short conversation with Lindgren, who appeared to stretch his back over the crossbar before the next faceoff, and Lindgren stayed in the game.
He didn’t last long, however. About five minutes later, Darcy Kuemper donned his mask on the bench and Lindgren exited after playing just 6:46. At the same time, defenseman Martin Fehervary also left the game after crashing into the boards behind Washington’s net; both players were ruled out with upper-body injuries during the first intermission.
Suddenly without their expected starting goalie and one of their best defenders, the Capitals saw the game quickly turn on them and went on to lose, 5-1. Kuemper stopped 24 of the 29 shots he faced in relief of the injured Lindgren.
“Definitely put us in a hole right away,” Washington Coach Spencer Carbery said. “Goaltender’s always a unique one, but you sort of feel like you can get out of that. Losing a D early is tough because now you go down to five so early, second shift of the game. And then you get some guys that are taxed real early in that game, which puts us in a tough spot.”
Carbery said that he didn’t know the severity of either injury but that both Lindgren and Fehervary will be out “at least for the foreseeable future.”
The Capitals escaped the first period unscathed, even as the Islanders built significant momentum, but New York scored two goals just 1:10 apart early in the second period, and the Capitals dug themselves only deeper into the hole as the game went on.
The Islanders picked the Capitals apart on the rush, taking advantage of turnovers and poor defensive zone coverage to strike seemingly at will in transition. Two mistakes led to the two second-period goals, and as Washington desperately tried to create offense while chasing the game, the Capitals opened up defensively — openings New York exploited.
On the Islanders’ first goal, Evgeny Kuznetsov’s line had New York hemmed into the defensive zone and was cycling the puck around. But when defenseman Rasmus Sandin turned the puck over while pinching down the wall, the Islanders stepped up into a four-on-two rush the other way. Jean-Gabriel Pageau slid into the left faceoff circle unmarked and received a seam pass from Alexander Romanov that he blasted into the upper corner of the net.
“It’s hard to sum up a game like that in one play, but that sequence in the offensive zone, it’s so emblematic of — I feel like I’ve said this a bunch this year, where things look really good for our group offensively,” Carbery said. “It looks like there’s some movement, and then Sandy turns it over, and the next thing you know you’re down 1-0. You go from such a positive situation to now being down 1-0, and like I’ve said before, that becomes then challenging. Then the second one, and now you’re really in a hole.”
Just over a minute after Pageau scored, Mathew Barzal carried the puck into the offensive zone and dropped a no-look pass to Noah Dobson, who fired a one-timer over Kuemper’s glove before center Dylan Strome could close him down.
To the extent that the Capitals found their footing in a game in which they were outshot 32-27, took 51 shot attempts to the Islanders’ 71 and mustered just one goal in the dying seconds, they found it after the Islanders went up 2-0. But their fleeting offensive zone sequences weren’t enough to generate a goal, and even a power play shortly after Dobson’s goal didn’t provide any help. The man advantage ended with Sandin taking a hooking penalty after the Islanders flew up the ice on a two-on-one shorthanded rush.
Carbery shook up Washington’s lines after a 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Wednesday, but the new-look combinations didn’t solve the Capitals’ offensive problems.
“Last couple games, it hasn’t been good enough offensively, obviously,” winger Tom Wilson said. “You’ve got to kind of work through it. It’s one of those things that you’ve just got to put your head down, work for each other, try and get open when the guy with the puck is looking for a play, that sort of thing. It’s not good enough.”
Julian Gauthier’s two goals 18 seconds apart in the third period would have been the final daggers for the Capitals if not for Pageau scoring his second of the night with 5:34 left to play. Nicolas Aube-Kubel broke up Ilya Sorokin’s bid for a shutout with 18 seconds left, which drew groans from the crowd but was of little comfort to Washington after a second consecutive ugly loss.
“We have way more skill than we’re showing,” defenseman John Carlson said. “... We’re not executing at a high enough level to consistently get the amount of good looks that we need to beat good goalies in this league.”
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