Sunday afternoon, Capitals forward Brett Connolly scored his 14th goal of the season, one shy of his career high set last year.

The goal was the first of three tallies that helped fuel an unlikely Capitals’ third-period comeback, which forced overtime. The Caps would ultimately fall in the extra session to the Detroit Red Wings 5-4.

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Wicked snapper @bconnolly8 #CapsWings #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/6kxhOsek7D

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) February 11, 2018

After some hard work along the boards by Devante Smith-Pelly, Jay Beagle found Connolly near the crease for the snapshot goal.

While the tally was nice, all Connolly could talk about after the game was the Caps bad second period.

“You know I think we showed good resiliency coming back. Obviously we’d like to get the last one there (in overtime),” Connolly said. “We can’t just start like that. We can’t be coming back three goals. They definitely deserved to win and that’s that.”

Connolly went on to describe a combative Caps locker room during intermission. Among the players to speak up was Caps goaltender Braden Holtby.

“That was the worst (period) of the year by far,” Connolly said. “Guys were not happy in-between periods. We’re trying to build our game up here. Trying to get points. Obviously we got a point. That’s positive, but guys are not happy in the room. Yeah. Not good. I don’t think anybody is going to be happy tonight going to sleep.”

After getting out-attempted 30 to 5 at all strengths in the second period, the Caps dominated play in the third, out-attempting the Red Wings 24-10 and scoring three consecutive goals.

“It just shows you when we’re pushing and we’re pissed off and we want to make a difference — I don’t even think they were in our end the whole period,” Connolly said. “We just have to try to find that balance of being consistent. First period was okay. Second period was terrible and then the third period probably our best period of the year.

“It was a wild game,” Connolly continued. “It was all over the place. We need to find a balance of good and bad.”

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Red Wings

Headline photo via @Capitals