Photo: Twitter: @Capitals
The Washington Capitals fell to the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2, Tuesday night at Capital One Arena. T.J. Oshie scored his 11th of the season and Joe Snively recorded a goal and an assist in the loss. The defeat drops the Capitals record to 28-22-6 (62 points) on the season.
Darcy Kuemper (16-14-4, 2.57 GAA, .916 sv%) got the start in goal for the Capitals. Frederik Andersen (11-4-0, 2.65 GAA, .895 sv%) got the start between the pipes for the visiting Hurricanes. The starting forward lines and defensive pairs for the Capitals:
Conor Sheary — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Anthony Mantha
Sonny Milano — Nicklas Backstrom — Marcus Johansson
Joe Snively — Dylan Strome — Marcus Johansson
Aube-Kubel — Lars Eller — Garnet Hathaway
Erik Gustafsson — Trevor Van Riemsdyk
Dmitry Orlov — Nick Jensen
Matt Irwin — Martin Fehervary
Darcy Kuemper
Charlie Lindgren
Scratches: Alex Ovechkin (family leave), Aliaksei Protas (paternity leave), Tom Wilson (lower body), Alexander Alexeyev.
Captains: No one donned the “C” for the Capitals tonight with Alex Ovechkin away from the team. T.J. Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom and Dmitry Orlov were all alternate captains.
FIRST PERIOD
The Hurricanes opened the scoring with a tally from Brent Burns (11) at 15:00 of the first frame. Jordan Staal (12) and Jordan Mrtinook (15) had the helpers.
Burn baby Burns!❤️🔥
Brent Burns walks it back and fires one past Kuemper to open up the scoring. pic.twitter.com/tAxZQy22FM
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 15, 2023
The Capitals tied the game on goal from T.J. Oshie (11) at 19:02 of the first frame. Joe Snively (2) had the primary helper, a nice centering feed from the left side. Dmitry Orlov (16) had the secondary assist.
THAT’S OUR 😍SHBABE pic.twitter.com/WvEumj8OPs
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) February 15, 2023
The first period ended with the game tied 1-1.
The Canes grabbed control of possession at the 11-min. mark, but the Capitals successfully squashed the surge at the 16-min mark and added the Oshie tally with nice feed from Joe Snipely with less than a minute to play. Canes led in five-on-five shot attempts, 18-11, scoring chances, 8-5 and xGF .69 to .58.
SECOND PERIOD
The Canes regained the lead early in the middle frame with a deflected goal from Paul Stastny (6) at 2:33 of the period. Calvin DeHaan (9) and Stefan Noesen (17) had the assists.
Paul Stastny scores against the Washington Capitals to make it 2-1 #WSHvsCAR #ALLCAPS #LetsGoCanes pic.twitter.com/EeTCBNZ0L9
— nopClips (@nopClips) February 15, 2023
The Capitals tied the game less than four minutes later on a snipe from Joe Snively (1) at 6:23 of the middle frame. Trevor van Riemsdyk (10) made an excellent stretch pass to set up the breakaway snipe.
Joe Snively takes the beautiful outlet from Trevor van Riemsdyk and snipes one past Andersen, tying it at 2!#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/nfZ77SNbUJ
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) February 15, 2023
The Canes regained the lead on another deflected shot, this time a power play marker from Stefan Noesen (10) at 11:38. Brady Skjei (14) and Teravainen (20) had the assists.
Net 👏 Front 👏 Presence 👏 pic.twitter.com/ta7Wq5P0S0
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) February 15, 2023
The second period concluded with the Canes leading, 3-2.
The Canes led 3-2 after two period, but a bit more of an even period, possession wise. The Canes led 21-19 in five-on-five shot attempts in the middle frame, but the Caps gained control of possession after Canes goal to even things out.
THIRD PERIOD
The Capitals appeared to tie the game with a goal from Trevor van Riemsdyk at 10:21, but the tally was waived off for goaltender interference.
There would be no additional scoring in the final frame.
The Capitals next host the Florida Panthers on Thursday night. Puck drop is set for 7:00PM ET.
SHAVINGS
- Alex Ovechkin left the team earlier in the day to tend to family matters.
- Aliaksei Protas was a late healthy scratch for the birth of his first child.
- T.J. Oshie scored his 11th goal of the season to tie the game 1-1. It marked the ninth goal the Capitals have scored in the final minute of a period this season.
- Joe Snively recorded the primary assist on Oshie’s goal, his second assist in seven games played this season. Snively, who was recalled from the AHL’s Hershey Bears this morning, has recorded nine points (4g, 5a) in 19 career NHL games with the Capitals.
- Joe Snively scores his first goal of the season to tie the game 2-2. It’s Snively’s second point of the game (1g, 1a), marking his second career multi-point game (also Feb. 10, 2022 at Montreal: 2g, 1a).
- Trevor van Riemsdyk recorded the primary assist on Snively’s goal, his 10th assist of the season. van Riemsdyk has recorded four points (2g, 2a) in his last four games.
- van Riemsdyk has recorded 16 points (6g, 10a) in 56 games this season, leaving him one point shy of matching his single-season career high (2021-22: 1g-16a–17p in 72 GP).
I was impressed. I was expecting a 6-0 loss. They stayed in it until the very end. And I think TVR’s goal was good.
They showed up, played well. Unfortunately, no style points.
They’ve had a lot of games like this during this season. Play well but no finishing ability. Either stopped by a hot goalie or something. We’re getting a glimpse of the post-Ovi Capitals
Rays won 5-3. Clay stopped 31 of 34. Bear had 1 assist and 3 sog, Has had 1 assist and 1 sog, Maass had 3 sog.
What d-pair was Has on tonight?
Beats me. Was watching the Caps, will watch the game tomorrow. I don’t see lines on the Rays/ECHL sites. Other than listening to the announcer, where would I find this?
Bear and Benton were starters. Has was in next group to take the ice. Bear is their preferred faceoff guy. Before the game, the coach talked about Maass. I think I heard:
Cody: I want to talk about Benton Maass. I feel that he’s not getting the credit that he deserves. He’s so solid, you can see the development from Day One when he came in here until now. It seems like you’re trusting him a lot more, you’re putting him in a lot more high pressure situations, he’s getting to play more in different situations. Why has he been able to progress so well?
HC: I think Ben’s just a hard working smart kid. He knows what he needs to do. Everyone struggles with it when they come from college and get into the pro game whether it is the AHL or the East Coast [see Jon, he called it East Coast too!] or especially the NHL. It just takes time to adjust. You can’t really go out of your comfort zone. We’re thrilled with his progression throughout the year. He was scratched a couple of times at the beginning of the year but again, just like any first year pro you have to go through that, you have to understand that there’s guys, not just from, just because you’re under contract doesn’t mean that you’re going to be given anything and Benton’s a perfect example of that. He never fought back, he just almost worked harder in practice and now he does such a good job of fronting shots it’s unbelievable whether it’s PK or 5on5. He finds himself in that lane, he’s able to get that puck, he makes a really hard NHL approach pass. Everything he does is hard. It’s just awesome to see his progression, obviously a little more trust both ways, we trust him and he’s starting to trust us as well.
Hey Fyre, Bears are down to 5 defensemen (illness/callups). Who is currently driving up from SC?
Nothing on ECHL or stingrays websites.
Heck, they could probably use two more defensemen. They are playing 13F/5D tonight.
Don’t take everyone out of North Charleston. Rays are in a very tight competitive division battle right now.
Ah, strain within an organization dealing with illness and injuries. Ness and/or Johansen might return by next game on Saturday in Charlotte.
3 points separate top 4 teams.
Poop. They had a shot in that one. Played well enough to win. Makes you wonder what a full lineup could have done. So hard to gauge this team.
I move that we keep Snively, Strome, and Oshie together for the next game. They may be our first line for the foreseeable future.
What could have been….without all of these absences.
Snively was a player tonight.
Our epitaph for the game. Carolina has a competent power play and could score on their one and only power play. The Caps power play is terrible and scored on none. If the Capitals had a competent power play, they would have at least gained a Bettman point.
Wow where has Snively been all year?
Great to see Snively have such a great performance. BTW, that pass to Snively from TVR was sick.
Is it my imagination or have the Caps given up an extraordinary number of goals on shots from the point over the past month? I like both our new goalies, but ever since the 2 Flyers games it seems like point shots and deflections have been a real weakness.
Part is system part is lack of physical players to move opponents from in front