‘That Wasn’t A 5-1 Game, In My Opinion’: What Capitals Said About Loss To Devils

It wasn’t a pretty night on paper for the Washington Capitals, who dropped a 5-1 decision to the New jersey Devils on Saturday. Hwoever, the team was better than the score indicated, and that was the message from the team after the game.

Here’s what Washington’s players had to say following the defeat in New Jersey to kick off a season-long six-game road swing.

Trevor van Riemsdyk

On Vitek Vanecek’s performance: “Yeah he had a good game. We put a lot of pucks on the net and created a lot but the bounces didn’t go our way and that’s how it goes sometimes.”

On wanting to play with the lead: “Yeah that’s a key to get those leads and play from the front instead of feeling like you’re chasing the game a lot. We’ve had a few good first periods where it feels like we don’t get rewarded and we end up down one. But you just got to stick with it and those tides will change.”

RELATED: What Vitek Vanecek Had To Say After Defeating, Nearly Shutting Out Former Washington Capitals

Dylan Strome

On Washington starting strong but Capitals jumping out to a lead: “I don’t know the exact stats, but I feel like they’ve scored the first goal a lot when we’re on the road. I’m not sure of the stats at home, but I feel like at least we’ve scored more at home first and it’s kind of, we do what they do to us on the road. We feel like chasing a little bit when we get down. We had our chances. I feel like if we take that effort in the first and bring it to the next game, hopefully we’ll have the lead after one and go from there. it’ll be nice to come out of the first period with the lead on the road.”

Lars Eller

On getting scoring chances but not seeing results: “Certainly felt like we had the quality of chances to get 4, 5, 6  goals but just couldn’t capitalize today.”

On Vanecek’s play: “He played well. He’s a good goaltender, bar helped one time. Some missed open nets. Just wasn’t our day.”

On the biggest difference between this year and last for Washington on the road: “I think just not scoring goals. Not capitalizing on our chances. We got the chances, especially today, but we only walk away with one goal. Could’ve had 5 or 6 with the looks we had. That’s they’re just not going in right now.”

Nic Dowd

On not getting out to a lead and playing from behind: “It’s really hard. I was sitting on the bench thinking the same thing. We jumped out to an early lead yesterday’s game, and it feels really good. It’s nice to be playing with the lead. I couldn’t tell you the stats of it, but it’s just felt like we’ve been coming from behind almost every single game this season. And then we do get out to a lead, we play well and I think our team functions better because we don’t have to lean on our top guys to play harder minutes in a back-to-back game that’s a lot to ask. Our penalty kill just needs to be better, all of us together. It’s tough digging ourselves a hole, especially on the kill. As killers, we take that pretty hard. We’re doing our best, so I think just trying to figure out a way to prevent that from happening.”

On feeling frustration of the chances not going on: “Frustarting’s a strong word. Honestly, it’s great that we’re creating those chances. I thought we played really well in the o-zone. Their goalie played really well tonight, you got to tip your cap to him. It’s more worrisome when you’re not creating chances and losing hockey games. That wasn’t a 5-1 hockey game tonight, in my opinion. I thought we did a good job creating chances… I think it’s just one of those things where you’re kind of like, ‘How are we not getting a bounce here? How does that puck not go in?’ Or ‘How does that hit the post?’ It’s just one of those things. But you just gotta keep working and keep pushing for those chances and those will eventually start falling.”