After losing to the Stars the night before, the Washington Capitals had plane issues and were forced to stay an unplanned night in Dallas, Texas. The team arrived in Chicago, Illinois, where they’d conclude their back-to-back, at around 12:30 pm on Tuesday, seven hours ahead of puck drop against the Blackhawks. The game was their third in four nights.
Despite those travel woes, the Capitals took an early 2-0 lead in the first period against the Blackhawks, which included a highlight-reel goal each from Pierre-Luc Dubois and Andrew Mangiapane, who was too sick to play the night before. But that was all the Caps could muster as they faded down the stretch and surrendered three unanswered tallies to the Blackhawks. Their 3-2 loss marked only the second time they’ve lost consecutive games all season.
“I mean, the excuse that I’m sure that’ll be dropped is the travel, but (we) should still be able to get through that,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said postgame.
Against a Chicago team with only 10 wins in its first 31 games, the Capitals struggled to generate offense at five-on-five against the Blackhawks’ towering defensemen. Washington managed only 18 shot attempts in the first 40 minutes, including a grisly 6 in the second period.
“I think even with the lead we had two really really good individual plays and the rest was kind of just sloppy,” John Carlson said. I think from the whole game, I don’t think we played very well. We were a little disjointed, a little disoriented. We weren’t our usual self.”
That ugly second period also featured the Capitals taking consecutive too many men penalties; the second penalty came as the team killed off the first two-minute minor.
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“You hope that they’re hardworking, good penalties, or saving [a goal], not too many men,” Carlson said.
But for Carbery, those two mental mistakes were only a small part of the buffet of bad.
“I mean you could point to a ton of different things,” Carbery said. “You could go through the film, it’ll be 50 different things that’s not good.
“You’re always hopeful that you’re gonna find a way especially when you build the lead, but right from the start of that game, the score to me doesn’t really matter because you’re trying to get to your game and you’re trying to figure (that) out and it just never never came.”
The Blackhawks’ game-winner epitomized the Capitals’ lack of energy and came via the hands of their leading goal-scorer, Ryan Donato. The forward got to a loose puck in the corner first, drove hard to the net, and beat Logan Thompson to the far post to send Blackhawks fans into celebration.
The Capitals will now have two days off before taking on the Carolina Hurricanes at home on Friday night. They’ll look to avoid their first three-game losing streak of the season.
“I just didn’t think we had it from the start of the game right to the finish,” Carbery said. “We had nothing.”
