The Washington Capitals not only dropped their fourth preseason game to sink their record to 0-3-1 but also lost a young defenseman in the process.
The Devils struck first with a minute left in the opening period on a power play goal from Alexander Holtz. The Devils outshot the Caps in the opening 20 minutes 10-4.
Caps head coach Peter Laviolette spoke on the first period woes:
"“Well, the first period wasn’t good. It was like we were carrying the plane around with us all over the ice. We were too slow and we weren’t sharp.”"
The Caps played better in the second period, outshooting the Devils 12-7 but found themselves in an early 2-0 hole. With 2:39 left, Michael McLeod doubled their lead. To make matters worse, Martin Fehervary left the game with just under seven minutes to go after what looked like he blocked the puck with his hand. The team called it an upper body injury. He is the third player hurt as the Caps are dealing with injuries to Nicklas Backstrom and Ilya Samsonov.
The Caps would get back in the game thanks to Connor McMichael, who’s battling Hendrix Lapierre for that final starting forward spot in the opening night lineup, probably at third line center. On the power play attack, McMichael fired a wrister from the right circle at 19:18. Garrett Pilon and Hendrix Lapierre had the helpers.
McMichael talked about his goal after the game:
"“It kind of took a weird bounce off the boards and came right to me. I looked up and had some space, and just decided to pick the far side, and I was thankful it went in.”"
In the third period, the Devils responded with two goals putting away any hopes of a Capitals comeback. Pavel Zacha scored on the power play at 5:59 and Jimmy Vesey added one at 19:50 to seal the win. The Devils outshot the Caps 9-5 in the third period and 26-21 overall. Vitek Vanecek played the entire game and stopped 22 out of the 25 shots that he faced.