RALEIGH, N.C. — For roughly 30 minutes on Tuesday, the Capitals showed they could apply pressure, dictate play and control the puck against the defending champion Hurricanes. And then came the rest of the game.
An undisciplined run led to a 4-2 loss for the Capitals. This was the beginning of the farewell tour for Alex Ovechkin: It was the first road game for the Washington captain since his announcement that he would retire at the end of the season and his final Capitals game in Raleigh for the regular season. Carolina fans recognized his last time in the building (for now) with a standing ovation early in the game. They left happy after Washington stumbled into a series of penalties and failed to protect an early lead.
“You’ve got to learn to manage those scenarios,” said Capitals coach Spencer Carbery. “And play winning hockey when the game’s on the line and when the temperature of the game gets raised.”
Washington outshot Carolina in the first period, 10-8. That did not last. Carolina outshot Washington for the rest of the game, 27-12.
Trending
“They started tilting the ice on us in the latter half of that second period and kind of continued in the third period,” said Capitals defenseman Justin Holl, who scored in his first game as a Capital after being recalled from AHL Hershey on Monday. “We just couldn’t find a way back.”
Consistently playing shorthanded made it harder for the team to find a rhythm. The penalty kill has been a relative strength for the Capitals. (“I think our PK has been solid all year,” said goalie Logan Thompson, who did just about everything he could facing a punishingly high shot volume. “Those guys have been balling out for me.”) But it has its limits. After successfully killing four consecutive penalties, Washington cracked early on its fifth and gave up the game-winning goal.
The Capitals’ penalties included a particularly maddening one by Ryan Leonard, who turned in an otherwise strong performance on Tuesday, including two assists. But he was benched after picking up a slashing penalty in the offensive zone with the game tied in the third period. Washington killed the penalty. Carbery didn’t allow Leonard to see the ice again until the final seconds of the night.
“You just cannot take a frustrating penalty and slash a guy twice when the game’s on the line,” Carbery said. “It can’t happen.”
Tuesday also provided the first example of how opposing teams may fete the retiring Ovechkin. During a stoppage in the first period, Carolina displayed his career statistics on the video board. The crowd rose to its feet for an ovation; Hurricanes players tapped their sticks in recognition; Ovechkin dutifully waved. The 41-year-old has never been much for sentimentality, but he won’t have much of a choice over the coming weeks and months. Some variation of this routine will repeat over and over as more arenas see him for the final time. Yet few of those cities will hold as many key memories for him as Raleigh.
Ovechkin has plenty of history in the building now known as the Lenovo Center. This is where the NHL held its 2004 entry draft, where a 19-year-old Ovechkin folded his massive frame into a small arena seat next to his parents, waiting for his name to be called first overall and for a new version of his life to start. It’s the arena where he scored for the first time on the road. (Asked if he remembered that particular goal, Ovechkin said no, then suddenly recalled the player who gave him the assist: Andrew Cassels, who spent only a few months playing alongside Ovechkin, and who’s been retired from pro hockey for two full decades.) And it was home to dozens of fierce divisional battles. There is no road arena that has seen more Ovechkin goals than the Lenovo Center.
He did not add to that total on Tuesday. Away from the power play, his ice time remained fairly limited, with 10 minutes, 31 seconds on the ice at even strength. As much as the arena tribute and the standing ovation, this is part of the long, slow process of saying goodbye.
“Those days, you can’t go back,” Ovechkin said at morning skate, reflecting on his early appearances in the arena. “But the memories are still there.”
Author
