Last night the Washington Capitals lost their third game of the season, 4-1 to the Edmonton Oilers. Through the first two periods the game was mostly a sleepy affair, with neither team getting much going and the Oilers gaining a two-goal lead off of a couple of deflections. Despite an Alex Ovechkin goal to start off the third period (his fourth of the season), the Caps couldn’t catch up and ultimately allowed another pair, resulting in their first losing streak in a long time.

How did the battles within the game go? Well, considering the final score, it was mostly okay for the boys from Washington. Shot attempts at five-on-five ended up being exactly tied at 45-45. The Caps actually out-attempted the Oilers overall, 64-57.

Here is the 5v5 game chart.

The Caps were mounting what looked like a push early in the third, before being short circuited by two ill-advised penalties, one of which led to a Milan Lucic goal. Washington went three out of four on the penalty kill.

So was it Benoit Pouliot and his two-goal night that crushed the Capitals? Nope. Surprise, it was the Oilers’ top line of wunderkind Connor McDavid, Lucic and Jordan Eberle. Let’s break down the matchups, and see where the Caps stand now that they sport a 3-2-1 record.

• McDavid’s line mostly skated against Nicklas Backstrom’s second line and absolutely torched them. Backstrom was a minus-seven in shot attempts against McDavid, as was TJ Oshie. Marcus Johansson managed to escape with a minus-four.
• The Oilers’ top line also smoked the defensemen tasked with guarding them, Karl Alzner and Matt Niskanen. The pair ended the evening a minus-nine and a minus-seven against McDavid, respectively. They were a minus-seven and minus-six overall. McDavid ended the night a plus-13 in shot attempts at five-on-five.
• Beyond shutting down getting obliterated by Edmonton’s top line, the Caps did well. Washington’s top line equally demolished the Oilers’ third line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zack Kassian, and Pouliot, despite his two-goal night. Kassian in particular had a rough go, ending the night a minus-11 in five-on-five shot attempts, despite 70 percent of his starts coming in the offensive zone.
• Oddly, the trio of Justin Williams, Lars Eller, and Zach Sanford got the second most ice time of any Washington line combination. They did well too, with Sanford coming out an impressive plus-eight on shot attempts. He looked good last night, so the eye-test agrees.
• In terms of penalty killing, the Caps did alright, though allowed a goal against again. This was their third-best effort in terms of limiting shots out of the six games to date, with 85 shots against per 60 minutes on the PK last night. They allowed 12 shot attempts against in eight and a half minutes.
• This was also by far their best night of the season generating shot attempts while on the power play. They generated 18 shot attempts in 6.6 minutes of ice time at five-on-four. Consider that against Pittsburgh they produced four shot attempts in 5.6 minutes at five-on-four. The process could still be much worse.
• According to the Hockeystats shot location chart the Capitals did allow a few more net-front and high danger chances than the Oilers by a margin of seven to five.

In the end this was a frustrating night for the Capitals, but it was in many ways a decent game. There are still no major warning signs in the way they are playing.

Headline Photo: Andy Devlin

Full Coverage of Caps at Oilers