Capitals fall to Rangers 4-1
The Washington Capitals suffered a rare road loss on Wednesday night.
The New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals 4-1 behind a 30 save performance from Henrik Lundqvist. The win tied Curtis Joseph for fifth on the NHL all-time wins list.
The first period was scoreless with shots on goal even at 10 apiece. The Rangers would get a power play opportunity at the end of the first that would carry over into the second when Tom Wilson was called for boarding against Libor Hajek.
The Rangers struck in the second on a power play goal from Artemi Panarin 74 seconds in. Kaapo Kakko and Ryan Strome had the assists and Panrain finished a wrist shot from the left face-off area. 1-0 was the score after 40 with the Caps having the edge in shots 14-9.
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At 2:32, the Caps went back on the kill when Dmitry Orlov was called for high sticking Adam Fox. The Rangers would double their lead with Panarin scoring again, this time rebounding a shot from Kakko at 3:27. Strome once again had the secondary assist.
At 4:20 the Rangers made it 3-0 with Pavel Buchnevich finishing a 2-on-1 rush with Filip Chytil. Brendan Lemieux had the secondary assist.
The Caps got a power play at 6:08 when Brendan Smith was called for tripping Richard Panik. Evgeny Kuznetsov got the Caps on the board with a wrister from the right circle off a pass from John Carlson with 12:36 to go.
The Rangers got one back with 6:26 left from Brett Howden in front of the net beating Caps goaltender Braden Holtby. Buchnevich and Chris Kreider had the helpers.
The Caps were outshot 12-7 in the third as the Rangers held on for a 4-1 win in Washington’s first regulation road loss in 10 games. Each team had 31 shots when all was said and done. Holtby made 27 saves for an .871 save percentage.
The Caps finished 1-for-3 on the power play while killing off just one of the three power plays they faced from the Blueshirts. The two power play goals were the first time all season an improving Caps PK allowed it in a game.
Capitals head coach Todd Reirden told Dan Rosen of NHL.com:
"“It ends up being a deciding factor. There were some points where we could stay in that one, and we weren’t able to scratch and claw our way back.”"
The Caps had the edge in hits 29-27 and on the face-off dot 57%-43% while the Rangers had 13 blocked shots compared to the Capitals’ seven.
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The Caps get two days off before hosting the Vancouver Canucks in a Saturday matinee at 12:30 p.m. from Capital One Arena.