Thursday night featured a battle for first place in the MassMutual East Divison between the Washington Capitals and New York Islanders. The Caps not only lost but were flat out bullied in an 8-4 loss in their tri state area road trip.
The first period was very eventful. It began 30 seconds in with T.J. Oshie and Ilya Samsonov colliding. Samsonov left the ice and in would come Vitek Vanecek. Samsonov would return later in the game.
Oshie talked about the play after the game via Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic:
"“Just a little miscommunication on the call on what the play on the puck was. I think he was thinking he was just trying to get it out of there and I was thinking that he was going to leave it. I felt terribly obviously.”"
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John Carlson ripped in a blast for his eighth goal of the season 61 seconds in. Tom Wilson and Conor Sheary had the helpers.
The Islanders responded with three unanswered goals. First it was Jordan Eberle at 5:02. Later on the scoring continued as Mathew Barzal gave the Isles the lead at 16:09 before Brock Nelson added another at 17:32.
The Caps would get back in the game. Off the face off draw won by Lars Eller, Daniel Sprong snapped shotted it in for his seventh goal of the season. The goal came at 17:54 and it brought the Caps to within 3-2. Unfortunately, the Islanders had an answer.
Barzal added his second goal of the game at 18:53. 4-2 Islanders was the score after a wild first period. The Islanders led in shots 13-7.
Casey Cizikas would make it a 5-2 score at 3:03. The Caps would answer with Oshie deflecting in a shot from Alex Ovechkin for a power play goal. Nicklas Backstrom had the secondary assist.
Jordan Eberle would answer at 8:08 to make it 6-3. The Caps would score in the last minute at 19:01 on a tic tac toe goal from Sprong to Jakub Vrana, to Carlson for his second goal of the night and ninth of the season. That was as close as the Caps would get.
6-4 was the score after two periods with the Isles leading in shots 9-7.
Josh Bailey would score at 3:13 and then Barzal completed the hat trick at 18:54. 8-4 was the final as the Islanders flat out spanked the Caps for their first win against them this season. With the win they are now tied with the Caps for first place in the East Division.
The Caps will look to bounce back tonight as they open up a two game set with the New Jersey Devils.