The Washington Capitals faltered in overtime by a final score of 2-1 to the San Jose Sharks to snap a four game winning streak.
Tyler Toffoli put the Sharks up 1-0 at the 19 minute mark in the opening period for his 10th of the season. Nic Dowd knotted he score at 13:02 for his seventh of the year to at least seucre one out of a possible two points on the night. Martin Fehervary added his sixth assist while Ivan Miroshnichenko had the secondary and has three.
William Eklund would end the contest with his fifth goal of season at the 39 second mark in overtime to give the Sharks the 2-1 win. Washington had the edge in shots in the early goings of the game.
Caps led in shots 16-8 in the first period while shots were even at eight in the second period. Sharks outshot the Caps 13-4 and were able to get up two shots compared to Washington's zero in overtime, the second shot winning the game. Sharks had the edge in totals of shots 31-28.
The Caps had the slight edge in face off percentage winning the dot battle 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent. Their power play went 0 for 3 on the night while San Jose went 1 for 4 for 25 percent. Washington had 18 penalty minutes compared to the Sharks six. San Jose outhit Washington 30-22. Caps had the edge in blocked shots 24-19. Sharks gave the puck away 23 times compared to D.C.'s 20 while San Jose had one takeaway the whole game.
Luckily for the Caps these two won't see each other until March 15 at 5 p.m. Who knows what either team would look like in the aftermath of the trade deadline anyway?
However, a loss is still a loss and Capitals coach Spencer Carbery emphasized to Harvey Valentine of NHL.com that there's still a lot more to work on:
"We're having a lot of issues right now being consistent with our game. That to me was an extremely disappointing performance to come back home and play that way in the second and third periods. "Spencer Carbery
The Caps will have an intense couple days of practice coming up before flying to Tornoto to take on the Maple Leafs from Scotiabank Arena on Friday night with the puck dropping at 7 p.m. on Monumental Sports Network.