-4 – Capitals‘ even-strength goal differential on Tuesday night, the worst single-game mark since December 13, 2011 (the seventh game of Dale Hunter‘s tenure behind the bench, 101 games earlier). The game also marked the third time Adam Oates‘s Caps have surrendered five even-strength goals in a regular-season game (Hunter’s Caps did it twice in 60 games), and, including the last game of last year’s playoffs, the Caps have now allowed 10 even-strength goals against in their last two games that mattered.
Granted, one of Tuesday night’s even-strength goals-against was an empty netter, but getting better at five-on-five (the underlying numbers from Game 1 didn’t look particularly good, either) has to be priority number one for the Caps right now.