Washington Capitals fall to Rangers
The Washington Capitals dropped their second regulation game in a row in a 4-2 loss to the New York Rangers Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. What is usually a loud and hostile environment for the road team was rather quiet other than the piped in “Let’s go Rangers!” chants.
Ryan Strome put the Rangers up 1-0 1:41 into the game. 1-0 would be the score after one with the Rangers leading in shots 15-8.
In the second period the Rangers doubled their lead with a goal from Anthony Bitetto at 9:15. The Caps would finally get on the board at 18:57.
After Carl Hagelin had a goal taken away from him the other night, he crashed the net and poked one in for his first goal of the season at a place he used to call home. Garnet Hathaway and Michael Sgarbossa had the assists.
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2-1 would be the score after two periods with the Caps leading in shots 14-8. Strome would add his second goal of the game at 7:55 in the third to make it 3-1 before Alex Ovechkin made it a one goal game with his third of the year at 11:01.
The assist came from Nicklas Backstrom and it came right off the face off draw, a rocket right from the office. The goal passed Mike Gartner for seventh place on the NHL’s all time goals list as it was the 709th of the Great Eight’s career.
The Rangers sealed the game with an empty net goal from Pavel Buchnevich. 4-2 would be the final. The Caps led in shots 11-8 in the third and 33-31 overall but couldn’t get the equalizer. Their record drops to 6-2-3 with the Philadelphia Flyers coming to town on Super Bowl Sunday.
“We are playing a ton of teams that are extremely good. If you don’t have 100 percent effort, or if you are not into the game fully, it is going to be hard periods. We’ve done that too much. We haven’t played a 60-minute game yet. It is time to adjust and figure that one out because I know if we do we are a very successful team. So we have to get to that.”
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Hagelin’s right. 60 minute efforts get the job done. Not 20 minutes. Not 40. In a tough division such as the East, points matter and the best way to get two points is to play a 60 minute game. They’ll look to do that this Sunday.