Less than 24-hours removed from a 5-1 drubbing of the Columbus Blue Jackets the night before, the Washington Capitals faced an uphill battle taking on a well-rested Ottawa Senators squad on Saturday night, and it showed in the first period. It took fewer than two minutes for a Dylan Cozens tip-in to find its way past Charlie Lindgren for Ottawa’s first tally of the night. The 1-0 lead would hold for the rest of the period without much resistance from the Caps, who were only able to register three shots on goal in the first twenty minutes.
The game would swing in the second period with some flashbacks being drawn to their previous regulation loss against Vancouver last Sunday. After poking away a pass intended for Matt Roy, a hard-charging Shane Pinto would crash into Charlie Lindgren with some help from a trailing Jakob Chychrun:
Officials would review the play to see if the puck crossed the line, eventually awarding a goal to Ottawa. The Capitals would issue a challenge, one that was perhaps ill-advised as they didn’t have anywhere near as much of a case to overturn the call as they did a week ago. Predictably, the call was upheld and the Senators would get another power play, one that would find Dylan Cozens putting home his second of the night to make it 3-0:
While Washington was able to bounce back from a similar hole last Sunday against Vancouver, there was no resurgence to be found here. Ottawa would slowly squeeze the life out of Capital One Arena throughout the rest of the night, holding the Caps to just 13 shots on goal in what was by far their ugliest performance of the year thus far.