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Bad penalties lead to very bad result: Hurricanes beat Capitals 6-2

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The Washington Capitals are entering a very important portion of their schedule, one that could determine their playoff aspirations come springtime. They squared off with the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night in a vital Metropolitan Division matchup between two teams separated in the divisional standings by four places but also by only four points.

Nic Dowd sniped the Capitals into an early lead and Dylan Strome tapped home a second before the first period ended. Brent Burns snuck down wide open and tapped home a great feed from Andrei Svechnikov to cut the lead in half. Seth Jarvis opened the third with a wrap attempt that squeaked through Darcy Kuemper to tie the game.

Andrei Svechnikov struck on a power play to give Carolina their first lead. Burns added another right after to make it four. Dmitry Orlov, of course, with the empty netter. Vasily Ponomarev scores his first NHL goal.

Hurricanes beat Capitals 6-2.

  • The Capitals came out of the first with a 2-0 lead but the five-on-five stats were ugly as sin. Carolina recorded 14 scoring chances and three high-danger chances and the Capitals matched that with just three scoring chances and zero high-danger chances. Praise be, PDO. Feels like you need it every time you play the Hurricanes. They have been so annoyingly good at even strength for over a decade now.
  • Big welcome back to Dmitry Orlov. The Capitals’ tribute video for him was really cool and he seemed genuinely touched by it. I love Dima and he’s easily a top 10 defensemen to ever play for the Capitals and that might be me being conservative. They do not win a Stanley Cup without him.
  • Dylan Strome scored his team-leading 14th goal. I love Tom Wilson, trust me, but Strome should be heading to Toronto to represent the Capitals at the All-Star Game. He has simply been the team’s best and most consistent offensive threat the entire season.

  • Brent Burns put a dent in the Capitals’ lead in the second as Carolina controlled almost the entirety of the play in the second frame. The Capitals were able to create a couple odd-man breaks but other than that, the Hurricanes had all of the puck. Washington managed just seven five-on-five shot attempts in the period.
  • Really would have been nice to see that Max Pacioretty shot find the back of the net. Instead, Patches rang the crossbar and left his former team unscathed. Still, you can see the natural goal-scoring ability in that shot. It’s clear he doesn’t have his legs yet but hopefully that gets better as he gets more games in.
  • Big congratulations to John Carlson on his 500th career assist. He is only the third player in Capitals history to reach the milestone with the team and only the sixth active defenseman to reach the mark.
  • If you haven’t seen Ryan Leonard’s goal and celebration from today’s World Junior gold medal game, what are you doing? The Capitals’ top prospect is making fans from around the league jealous when they watch him play. That’s a great sign. Shoutout to Ryan Chesley as well. Super solid on the backend for Team USA playing top minutes.

  • The third was actually the Capitals’ best period. Too bad they lost their minds at the end of the game and marched to the box.
  • Beck Malenstyn took a bad penalty in the third, it gave the Canes the lead. Evgeny Kuznetsov then followed that up by taking a slashing penalty for no reason. Carolina scored on that one too. I don’t know what to tell you. If I had it my way, the team would have done something about both of those forwards like weeks ago.
  • Vasily Ponomarev looks like he’s going to be a good one. The Canes draft annoyingly well so I’m not surprised.

The Capitals will next host the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday afternoon. The Caps beat the Kings 2-1 in late November when they were on their long western road trip.

Headline photo courtesy of @DrJCottrell/X

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