WASHINGTON – The Islanders were in charge and then the second period came.
Zdeno Chara scored for the first time with his new team to crown a second five-goal period, and the Washington Capitals returned to surprise the New York Islanders with a 6-3 victory on Thursday night.
The Islanders led 3-0 before Washington scored four goals at 5:09. Conor Sheary scored his first two with the Capitals, Garnet Hathaway tied and John Carlson gave them the lead in the power game.
Then Chara’s scorer from inside the blue line beat Semyon Varlamov clean, scoring five unanswered goals in less than 10 minutes. Former Boston captain Bruins, 43, was surrounded by teammates on the bench, while the players from the Islands seemed shocked by the turn of events.
“Very excited to score the first goal as a member of Washington Capitals, but I went back to the bench for the guys right away because I just wanted to share that joy and excitement with them,” said Chara.
The Islanders were in charge after goals in the first period by Oliver Wahlstrom, Casey Cizikas and captain Anders Lee. It looked like the moves by Stanley Cup winner Barry Trotz to put Wahlstrom in place of tough Ross Johnston and changing the lines were running after losing to the Capitals in a last-minute goal on Tuesday night.
Instead, the Islanders lost in regulation for the third game in a row.
“You lose two games (in Washington) and win zero points and are now looking at some teams,” said Trotz. “It ended up being a two game loss here for us.”
Capitals set a franchise record by starting the season with a straight eight consecutive points. They did this without five regulars: captain Alex Ovechkin, center Evgeny Kuznetsov, defender Dmitry Orlov and goalkeeper Ilya Samsonov lost the fourth consecutive game because of the COVID-19 protocols, and center Lars Eller was eliminated with an injury in the upper body.
“We feel good about our team, we feel good about the depth and the number of people who could really intervene and not only fulfill a role, but also stand out,” said Carlson.
Vitek Vanecek made 27 saves in his fifth consecutive start on the net, Tom Wilson scored an empty goalkeeper with 18.7 seconds left and the capitals remained undefeated in regular time under coach Peter Laviolette.
“Many teams don’t come back from 3 to 0,” said Hathaway. “It’s a big step for us, especially in the locker room and all the guys that we have on our schedule right now.”