The Caps put together something of a reverse hangover game last night, starting out strong before slowly imploding about halfway through. After Anthony Mantha’s opening tally, the Rangers struck back – quickly and often – with goals by K’Andre Miller, Artemi Panarin and Braden Schneider over a roughly five-minute span to put the game out of reach.
As a result, they picked up their first regulation loss when scoring the first goal of the game, and failed to gain ground on an Islander team that got pummeled by the Penguins while the Caps were taking their own thrashing.