Live from the dressing room: Carbery not holding back after ‘Terrible’ puck play, Capitals say they came away from identity vs. Sharks

WASHINGTON — It’s no secret that head coach Spencer Carbery wants to tell it like it is whether his Washington Capitals are playing well or playing poorly. And that’s exactly what he did after a 2-1 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks.

Carbery did not speak, calling his team an “extremely disappointing” effort from which DC still managed a point.

“Obviously, our puck play was terrible. We couldn’t put together passes. You saw the execution,” Carbery said, adding, “It’s just this ugly game, we’re starting to lose structure. We’re giving up breakaways, 2-on-1s , 3-on-2s It’s just a total fire drill right to the end of that hockey game.”

Washington’s players agreed with that assessment.

“We let two points slip away tonight. It’s frustrating,” Logan Thompsonwho stopped 29 of 31 shots in the loss, said.

Although the Capitals got off to a strong start in the first, San Jose was able to go up 1-0 on a goal from Tyler Toffoli. And though Nic Dowd tied it in the second, Washington found itself scrambling to hold on for a point as the Sharks dominated the ice for the final 40 minutes.

Tom Wilson picked up a double-minor late in regulation after catching Macklin Celebrini high, which ultimately led to William Eklund scoring the overtime winner on the extended power play.

“It felt like an off night, which is unacceptable,” Rasmus Sandin said of the loss. “We need to control the puck better and play mature hockey.”

The overtime loss snapped a four-game hitting streak for Washington, which had scored at least four goals in every game during that span.

Connor McMichael thought the Capitals offensively fell into a habit of trying to overshoot or do too much, which led to a lack of success against Mackenzie Blackwood.

“We played too many games, maybe thought it was going to be easy,” he shrugged. “We just got off our game.”

Dowd also noted that there was a bit of a “lull” and lack of energy” throughout the game.

“It’s kind of on us internally,” Dowd said, adding, “Just away from what makes us a good hockey team.”

Washington returns to training on Wednesday looking to shake off the defeat and avoid falling further into the trends revealed on Tuesday – although Carbery admitted he has been far from impressed with the team’s performance at home lately.

Still, the Capitals want to prove that this is just a “one-off.”

“I think we all understand what makes us a good hockey team,” Dowd said.

“We weren’t ourselves tonight and that’s okay. There’s a lot of games left, this is a good game to learn from,” Thompson added.