Capitals once again fall to Hurricanes
It was a team that gave the Washington Capitals fits last spring. Now it looks like it’s carried over.
The Carolina Hurricanes put a beating on the Washington Capitals in Raleigh. Every time the Caps tried to come back, the Hurricanes answered with a goal of their own in a 6-4 win.
Like the Bruins game, the Caps had issues and couldn’t stay out of the box. Nick Jensen was called for tripping at 9:35 and the Hurricanes made them pay thanks to Lucas Wallmark at 10:38. 1-0 was the score after one with Carolina having the edge in shots 11-7.
Warren Foegele doubled that lead eight seconds into the third putting the Capitals in a 2-0 hole. Nic Dowd got the Capitals on the board at 3:26 with his fourth goal of the season. Finishing a 2-on-1 rush, Dowd took the shot himself. John Carlson and Garnet Hathaway had the helpers.
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Less than two minutes later the Hurricanes answered with Dougie Hamilton. The Caps got a power play when Joel Edmundson was called for tripping at 11:12 and Alex Ovechkin got one back with a shot right from the office for his 24th. Dmitry Orlov and Lars Eller had the assists.
The Hurricanes responded a few minutes later with Foegele’s second of the game which came on the power play. 4-2 was the score after 40 with the Caps having the edge in shots in the middle stanza 13-7.
The third started out with Foegele tripping Jonas Siegenthaler 1:11 in, putting Washington back on the power play. Evgeny Kuznetsov split through the two defenders and finished to score his 13th of the season. Nicklas Backstrom and Carlson had the helpers.
80 seconds later, the Hurricanes once again responded with Martin Necas before Svechnikov scored an empty netter to put the game away.
The Caps got one back at 18:47 with Richard Panik scoring his fourth of the season, with the helpers from Radko Gudas and Carl Hagelin but by then it was too late as the Caps fell 6-4.
Gudas told the media after the game (via NHL.com):
"“They had some responses right away after our goals, and unfortunately we couldn’t keep them out. I thought we kept coming back. We had some great looks, hit a couple posts.”"
"“We started making some pushes and couldn’t string together a bunch of shifts in a row that we could really turn the corner on the game, and they were able to capitalize on their chances.”"
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The Capitals head home for a New Years Eve matinee game with the New York Islanders. Puck drop is at 1 p.m.