The Washington Capitals, without many of their regulars due to injury, fell behind 3-0 to the Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday despite outshooting them and carrying play.
“What we were doing shift to shift was excellent,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said.
“It’s funny,” Jakob Chychrun added. “I just felt like we were playing so well. Even when we were down three, I said to myself on the bench. [Rasmus Sandin] was sitting next to me. I was so close to turning to turning to him and telling him, ‘It just feels like we’re winning this game.'”
While Hendrix Lapierre and Dylan Strome began the Capitals’ comeback with goals in the second period, a physical play by Tom Wilson turned the tide of the game in the third.
With 6:57 remaining in regulation, Wilson blew up Hurricanes forward Logan Stankoven behind the net with a huge hit. Like the Jacob Trouba hit on Ryan Leonard, Wilson caught the much-smaller Stankoven with his head down while looking at the puck. Wilson appeared to initially strike Stankoven in the chest with his hit, but also caught him in the head.
Once he was able to get up, an irate Stankoven went after the next Capitals player with the puck, Aliaksei Protas, for retribution, but got sent hard to the ice again. After passing back and forth with Wilson, Protas eventually found Jakob Chychrun at the top of the circles, who fired a snap shot from 35 feet away past Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen to tie the game 3-3. The goal was Chychrun’s 19th of the season.
When Stankoven returned to the bench, he was bleeding at the top of his left eye. Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour was furious when he saw Wilson’s hit on replay.
The Capitals and Hurricanes remained tied through the rest of regulation. In overtime, the Capitals put the only three shots on goal. Justin Sourdif ended the game with his first career overtime-winner.
“It’s huge,” Sourdif said. “We all know we can do it in here with everybody. Guys stepped up obviously. We were missing some bodies and everybody played super hard all night. Mud (Clay Stevenson) was huge the whole game. He made some really big stops for us. The PK too coming off that 5-on-3. Big hit by Willy giving us momentum. It was a hard, solid 60 minutes.”
Meanwhile, outside the other locker room, Brind-Amour was frustrated with how his players “just wanted to get through the game” and had “zero intensity.”
“We sure didn’t get to [our game],” Brind’Amour said. “From opening puck drop to the end, I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a 60-minute game where we were that bad. Somehow, we managed a point. Literally, there is zero way we should have. They dominated us from start to finish.”
