The Washington Capitals were hoping to extend their winning streak on home ice to six games last night, but the Utah Mammoth clearly had other plans. The Mammoth was the last team the Caps had yet to face this season and they’ll only play once more (later this month in Utah). Coming into last night, the general expectation was for this game to be won (or lost) at 5-on-5. However, it was a special teams affair that saw both Washington and Utah convert twice on the power play. It was almost like a switch flipped for the Caps—instead of a successful penalty kill and shaky power play, they looked great on the man-advantage and sloppy on the PK. Utah’s third goal, which was the eventual game-winner, was their second power play goal of the night. Let’s take a closer look…
The Mammoth were on the final push of their power play when JJ Peterka found the back of the net. Peterka was actually the skater who brought the puck into the offensive zone. He drove hard all the way to the bottom of the left circle before passing it back to Sean Durzi up at the blue line. Durzi then made a cross-ice pass to Logan Cooley while Peterka positioned himself in the middle of the zone. Cooley then fired a quick pass back to Peterka, whose one-timer from the right side of the slot made it past Logan Thompson and restored Utah’s two-goal lead. The entire play took just ten seconds from zone entry to goal.
The finish was admittedly a bit unlucky for Washington—the puck hit two posts and then bounced off Thompson’s glove as he swung his hand back and tried to find it. However, a goal is a goal and this one won Utah the game.
It’s worth noting that the Caps were missing two key penalty killers in John Carlson (lower body, day-to-day) and Aliaksei Protas (personal). However, two guys out of the lineup shouldn’t completely derail the PK. Hopefully at least one of them will be back for their next game—Saturday afternoon in Boston, after the trade deadline—but if not, let yesterday serve as a wake-up call for the rest of the penalty killers.