Live From The Locker Room: Carbery Doesn't Hold Back After 'Horrendous' Puck Play, Capitals Say They Got Away From Identity vs. Sharks

WASHINGTON — It's no secret that head coach Spencer Carbery will 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 didn't mince words, calling out his team for an "extremely disappointing" effort that D.C. still managed a point out of.

"Our puck play was obviously horrendous. We couldn't string together passes. You saw the execution," Carbery said, adding, "It's just this ugly game that we start losing 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 Thompson, who stopped 29 of 31 shots in the defeat, said.

Though 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 just trying to hold on for a point as the Sharks titled the ice in the final 40 minutes.

Tom Wilson took a double-minor late in regulation after catching Macklin Celebrini up high, ultimately leading 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 manage the puck better and play mature hockey."

The overtime loss snapped a four-game winning streak for Washington, who had scored at least four goals in each contest during that span.

Connor McMichael believed that offensively, the Capitals fell into a habit where they were trying to overpass or do too much, leading to a lack of success against Mackenzie Blackwood.

“We were making too many plays, maybe thought it was gonna be easy," he shrugged. "We just got away from our game.”

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

"That’s kind of on us internally," Dowd said, adding, "Just got away from what makes us a good hockey team."

Washington will return to practice on Wednesday, where it will look to shake off the defeat and avoid falling further into the tendencies that were exposed on Tuesday — though Carbery admitted he's been far from impressed with the team's play at home of late.

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

"I think we all understand in here what makes us a good hockey team," Dowd said.

"We weren't ourselves tonight, and that's okay. A lot of games left, this is a good game to learn from," Thompson added.