A team meeting earlier this week between Washington Capitals players resulted in, a point.
On Tuesday night, the Caps lost to the visiting San Jose Sharks, 7-6, in extra time.
Midway through the third period, Caps held a 6-4 advantage over the Sharks but Tomas Hertl scored at 10:02 to make it 6-5 and Evander Kane picked up his second of the night to tie it night at 19:59 to force the extra session.
Hertl completed his hat trick when he struck for the game-winner at 1:48 of overtime.
“I thought the game was over,” San Jose center Logan Couture said. “I came to the bench and I changed and I was frustrated. I broke my stick over the bench, then I look up and [Kane is] putting the puck in the net. Pretty wild to be able to tie that up there.”
The Sharks improved to 29-16-7.
“I’m just happy I got the game-winner and we won the game. It was a crazy game, but everybody pushed hard, we stayed with it and we got it done. That’s what matters,” Hertl said after the win.
Joe Pavelski and Couture also scored for the Sharks.
“That was a wild one,” San Jose coach Peter DeBoer said. “It was like the All-Star Game five days early. The East Coast version of the All-Star Game. I don’t know what even to say. We’ll take it. We needed it.”
Martin Jones made 33 saves in the win.
Alex Ovechkin had a hat trick in the loss.
“It was my mistake at the end of the game,” Ovechkin said. “I tried to make a rush play. Have to be better in this situation.”
The Caps held a 3-2 lead after the first period and led 5-4 after two.
Washington dropped to 27-16-6 with the loss.
The team meeting had little impact on the club from their head coach’s reaction after the loss.
“That was not Washington Capital hockey,” Caps head coach Todd Reirden said. “Going chance for chance against a team that has that type of firepower, that’s not going to win in the long run. We learned a hard lesson again on that tonight because that’s not acceptable and that’s not going to work in the long run. No way.”
T.J. Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky had single markers for the Caps.
[WATCH: All Sharks vs. Capitals highlights]
Braden Holtby made 36 saves in the loss.
“I think we’re just not all the way there right now. It seems like in a lot of instances, we’re like 90, 95 percent all-in, and that extra 5 or 10 percent that we don’t bring, right now they’re ending up in goals against,” Oshie said.
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