WASHINGTON, DC — Less than 48 hours after a dominant 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild, the Washington Capitals could have hardly looked more different when the puck dropped against the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday.
The Capitals got off on the wrong foot in the afternoon game, allowing Vancouver center Elias Pettersson to score just 59 seconds into the contest before a disastrous sequence of events late in the first period sent them to the dressing room in a 3-0 hole.
Washington launched a valiant comeback effort in the third period, bringing the score to 4-3 with 2:14 left in regulation, but the team’s sluggish start proved too difficult to recover from. Asked what wasn’t working in the first, Jakob Chychrun had a simple answer.
“Everything,” he said.
Head coach Spencer Carbery’s opinion of the first period was similarly harsh, albeit more detailed.
“(We) just weren’t ready to play in a bunch of different facets, I thought,” he said. “Couldn’t forecheck, couldn’t get a puck in, struggled to exit our zone, bunch of touches that went south on us.”
The loss to Vancouver came in Washington’s first matinee of the season, but the team has had mixed results in day games dating back years. Since the 2023-24 season, the Caps have gone 8-8-3 in games starting before 3 pm, compared to a 87-47-17 record in evening games.
Ryan Leonard, who played his second career afternoon game in the NHL on Sunday, acknowledged that he noticed a difference in the 12:30 pm start, though that didn’t make up for the team’s poor play, especially given that their opponents were playing at the same early hour.
“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s the first game of the year that it’s this early, so it has a different feel, but it’s no excuse.”
Carbery was surprised when asked about the team’s general performance in day games, noting that he would have to do more research to see if there’s a broader trend, but at the very least, he wasn’t happy with his team’s failure to show up on time on Sunday.
“Why? Are we not– is our record overall not good?” he asked. “Well, I mean certainly you can point to today, not being ready at 12:30 for that start, so that for sure.
“I would have to do more digging, because I haven’t felt like it’s been an issue, but we’ve got a pretty veteran group that can get themselves ready to play, whether it’s 7 o’clock, 3 o’clock, we pride ourselves on — Sunday afternoon, Tuesday in front of 5,000 people, or Saturday night in front of 20,000 people. So I haven’t felt that way, but if that is the case, we need to be ready to play. It doesn’t matter what time it is.”
While the Capitals struggled throughout the opening period, the game went from bad to worse with just over three minutes to go until intermission. An initial shot from Filip Chytil turned into a scramble in front of of Charlie Lindgren that ended when defenseman Tyler Myers sent the puck into the net.
After taking a timeout to deliberate, the Capitals opted to challenge the play for goaltender interference, but the officials upheld the call, leaving the Capitals not only down 2-0 but with a minor penalty for the failed challenge. Kiefer Sherwood scored a power play goal 41 seconds later to give Vancouver the 3-0 lead.
Lindgren declined to comment on the play itself, telling reporters that “people can make their own decision on it,” but highlighted the downward spiral that began with the goal.
“They score on the first shift. That’s never ideal,” Lindgren said postgame. “They score the second one, and then we challenge; they score on the penalty — I mean, it’s a domino effect at that point. Extremely frustrating, maddening.”
The Capitals will look to bounce back in their next game on Tuesday, when they will wrap up a four-game homestand against the Seattle Kraken.
