This one got ugly in a hurry on Thursday night.
After taking an easy 3-0 lead in the first period in Washington, DC, the visiting New York Islanders yacked up a five-spot in the middle frame en route to a 6-3 win by the 
Capitals.
“This is a punch in the mouth and an upper cut to the jaw and you’ve just got to pick yourself up off the floor because no one else is going to do it,” New York head coach Barry Trotz said. “Everyone wants to pile on right now, I suspect, and we need to pull together. Sometimes when you think it gets the darkest, that’s when you’re closest to breaking out of it, so that’s what we’re going to hold on to right now.”
Oliver Wahlstrom, Casey Cizikas Anders Lee scored in the first period for the Isles for the 3-0 advantage.
After the rough opening 20 minutes, Vitek Vanecek settled down and made 27 saves for the win.
Conor Sheary struck twice for the Caps who scored five times in the middle frame for a 5-3 lead heading to the third.
“It was pretty awesome,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I said it after the game, it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time with reg
ard to a team.”
John Carlson and Garnet Hathaway also scored for the Caps.
“It’s not easy with how we were set up in the game,” Carlson said. “To really take over and dominate the rest of the way was a special way to win and a confidence booster, not just for tonight.”
Zdeno Chara picked up his first goal with the Caps.
“I returned to the bench to the guys right away because I just wanted to share the joy and excitement with them,” Chara said. “Since Day One, they’ve really done an amazing job welcoming me and making the transition as easy and simple as possible for me.”
Tom Wilson closed out the scoring with an empty-net net goal.
Semyon Varlamov made 17 saves. in the loss.
“We had a great start; we got to our game right away and did what we wanted to do in that first period,” Lee said. “Obviously, the second period we had a pretty bad lapse and that’s what turned the game around completely. At the same time, we’re looking at it as plenty of hockey to get ourselves back into it, similar to how they clawed themselves back. We just weren’t able to find the first one to get us going, and it turns into a bad loss.”
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