In Washington, DC, James Reimer made 32 saves and the San Jose Sharks defeated the Capitals, 4-1 on Wednesday night.
“Any time things don’t go your way, you want to come back and play well or do what you can,” Reimer said. “Obviously, you never know what’s going to happen out there, but you want to try and bring your A game and let the chips fall where they fall.”
Daniel Sprong was the lone striker for Washington in the loss.
“I don’t like the first half of the first period. We were outdone in too many areas,” Washington head coach Peter Laviolette said. “That’s not good, we can’t accept that. I thought the last eight minutes we got going a little bit. For me, the game was just OK. I think we’re better than that.”
The Capitals fell to 23-12-9.
“We had a lot of scoring chances. They’re just not falling right now,” Sprong said. “I think we’ve got to get a dirty one and then I think with this team that we have, we know we can score. There’s going to be a game where it falls for us and it’s going to break wide open.”
Noah Gregor and Nicolas Meloche scored for San Jose to give them a 2-0 lead.
“I don’t know if I’d say it’s the biggest [win] of the year, but it was definitely a response game,” San Jose head coach Bob Boughner said. “That’s what we stressed the last couple days: showing up, responding and picking ourselves up off the floor.”
January has not been a friendly month for the Capitals, they are 3-6-2 on the month so far.
San Jose moved to 22-19-2.
Jonathan Dahlen hit for a goal for the Sharks to make it 3-1, after Sprong had made the count, 2-1.
Andrew Cogliano collected an empty-net goal for the Sharks with 21 seconds left in the third period, for the 4-1 final.
“I think we’ve gotten really good looks, especially tonight,” Washington’s John Carlson said. “We’ve just got to keep working for those chances, and I think that is the biggest thing. Focus on what we are doing to get those good chances.”
Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves in the Caps loss.
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