Capitals get crushed by Golden Knights
The Washington Capitals played an uninspiring game and were simply dominated by the Vegas Golden Knights. The final score was 6-2.
Alec Martinez struck first at 2:17 while Nicolas Roy doubled the lead at 7:36. 2-0 was the score after one with the Golden Knights leading in shots 10-6.
In the second period the Golden Knights added on. Michael Amadio struck at 2:15. Byron Froese scored at 12:04. Then Paul Cotter made it 5-0 at 13:38. T.J. Oshie got the Caps on the board at 18:20 assisted by Erik Gustafsson and Dylan Strome. It was his 10th goal of the season.
5-1 was the score after two periods with the Golden Knights outshooting the Caps 11-8 in the second period. The Caps outshot the Golden Knights 8-6 in the third period but were outshot 27-22 overall. Darcy Kuemper got pulled out of the game.
Cotter added his second goal of the game at 3:59. Marcus Johansson scored his 12th goal of the season at 10:41 which was assisted by Trevor van Riemsdyk and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Oshie summed up the loss and his team’s effort as “disinterested”:
“Tonight that was probably the worst we’ve played, I don’t know, I can’t remember [the last time] … how disinterested we looked like we were tonight. Bury it and away we go.”
The Caps were without Alex Ovechkin as he’s day to day with a lower body injury. He skipped morning skate for “maintenance”. Who knows how long they’ll be without the great eight.
In his place on the top line was… Anthony Mantha. That’s right, the same Anthony Mantha who was scratched from the lineup multiple times and hasn’t quite played well.
Johansson added:
“They felt faster than us and they were quicker to battles and won more pucks and in their own end too, they had a step on us pretty much the whole first period and it is a tough uphill battle from there.”
The Caps look to bounce back on Tuesday night as they conclude their west coast trip against the Colorado Avalanche.