Caps show life late, but not enough to complete comeback vs. Flyers originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The Capitals’ offense took nearly 50 minutes to wake up Wednesday and nearly erased a three-goal deficit, but fell just short in a 5-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. Washington trailed 4-1 with 12:32 to play before Marcus Johansson and T.J. Oshie scored five minutes apart to give the team a fighting chance on the road until an empty-netter by Travis Konecny clinched a hat trick and the win.
Darcy Kuemper did his best to keep the Capitals in it. According to Natural Stat Trick, he faced 11 high-danger chances and stopped nine of them. The Capitals’ netminder stopped multiple breakaways and allowed just three rebounds all night.
Kuemper did allow two goals on low-danger chances, but both shots were aided by screens. Flyers defenseman Scott Laughton scored in the first period on a shot from the point that cut its way through heavy traffic and Konecny added an insurance goal in the third that Kuemper lost sight of just before the shot.
With the Capitals still trying to build chemistry up and down their lineup after reshuffling their lines for the activations of Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson, it was their fourth line that provided their first goal for the night. Nic Dowd passed the puck off the wall to streaking defenseman Nick Jensen, who found Garnet Hathaway down low to slam it home late.
After Hathaway’s tally tied the game, the Flyers fired right back 21 seconds later on a goal by Konecny from the low slot. The 2-1 score held until the third period when the Flyers added two insurance goals to extend their lead. Washington’s fourth line got one back on a turnover by Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov, who accidentally passed to Johansson.
Oshie then gave the Capitals legitimate life with a backhand tally at the 14:42 mark. Backstrom recorded an assist on the play, his first of the season after missing the first three months recovering from hip resurfacing surgery.
However, Oshie picked up a penalty with 1:19 to play and Flyers goaltender Carter Hart held on to withstand a late flurry of offense before Konecny scored his third goal of the night on an empty net to clinch the victory.
With the loss, the Capitals fell to 23-15-6 for just their second regulation loss in 12 games. They’ll return to the District and take two days off before hosting the Flyers in their home arena Saturday night.
