PHILADELPHIA – The Capitals received a dose of their own medicine on Tuesday night and saw for themselves what happens when a team is given close to 10 minutes of power play time.
Through 35 minutes the Capitals and Flyers played a very even hockey game.
That all changed when rookie right wing Tom Wilson took a five-minute charging penalty on Flyers center Brayden Schenn.
The Flyers responded with power-play goals from defenseman Mark Streit and Jake Voracek and skated away with a 5-2 win at the WellsFargoCenter.
“It was a tough call on Willy,” said Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, who recorded his league-leading 28th goal of the season and 399th goal of his career in the second period. “They use it, we try to make a push and we didn’t.”
With the win the Flyers earned three of a possible four points in the two-game series. The regulation loss was the first in six games for the Caps, who had gone 4-0-1 in their previous five.
Caps goaltender Braden Holtby allowed five goals on 35 shots to fall to 13-10-1.
He said the fact the Flyers had 9:37 in power play time does not absolve anyone from blame.
“That’s what we’re there for, goaltenders, penalty killers,” he said. “That’s our time to contribute. We didn’t do that tonight.”
The Caps grabbed a 2-1 lead on goals by Alex Ovechkin and Eric Fehr but saw the Flyers tie it on Matt Read’s 10th goal of the season with just under 12 minutes gone in the second period.
“I thought we were good,” said Troy Brouwer, who assisted on Fehr’s goal. “We were creating chances in the offensive zone, we were limiting the time that we were spending in our D zone. We got scored on.
“The second goal against was a D zone shift and they were able to get an opportunity, but I thought we were playing well. We were playing hard, we liked where we were at in the game, but then a play like that and the game turns.”
Wilson was not available for comment after the game but nearly everyone in the organization, from general manager George McPhee and head coach Adam Oates to Ovechkin defended his actions.
The Capitals will have the day off on Wednesday and get back to work Thursday morning at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in preparation for Friday night’s visit to Carolina to face the Hurricanes, who are four points behind the Caps in the Metropolitan Division standings.
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