The Washington Capitals had a sluggish start to the second half of the season.
Coming out of the All-Star break the Washington Capitals were looking to continue the hot streak they were on. However, the Caps stumbled in their first game back and fell 3-2 to the New York Islanders on the road.
Struggling against the Islanders was nothing new for the Caps, as Tuesday night marked the third of five games they dropped to the team from Brooklyn.
Things started well for the Caps, as they took the lead in the first period on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s 10th goal of the year. However, Washington looked sluggish in the second period and allowed the Islanders to tie it up on an Alan Quine power-play goal.
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New York took the lead in the third period when Ryan Strome took a nice pass across the crease and planted the puck in the back of the net. The Islanders padded the lead with an empty-net goal late in the third period.
Alexander Ovechkin made things interesting with a goal at 19:13 in the final frame. Unfortunately, that’s as close as the Caps would get.
Washington put 30 shots on opposing goalie Thomas Greiss, but were not able to end his hot streak. The win was the fifth in six stars for Greiss.
The Caps kept starting goaltender Braden Holtby on the bench in favor of backup Philipp Grubauer. He stopped 26-of-28 shots, but wasn’t able to come out on top.
Washington will needed to shake the loss off quickly, as they will be back on the ice at home Wednesday night against the Boston Bruins.