Caps' Power Play Falters in Loss

Matt Pettinger sat at his locker room stall last night, pondering what might have been had the Washington Capitals scored on just one of their five-on-three power plays.

Pettinger, soaked with sweat, slumped a bit as he was informed of the specifics: four two-man advantages for a combined 3 minutes 57 seconds.

The result of the Capitals' power outage was a 3-1 loss to Dominik Hasek and the injury-depleted Ottawa Senators before an announced crowd of 10,047 at MCI Center.

"We have to score on those five-on-threes," Pettinger said. "In the second period, that was huge not scoring there."

Washington managed to squeeze one past Hasek late in the third period, when Pettinger redirected a slap shot from the point. His power-play goal trimmed the Capitals' deficit to 2-1 with 5:41 remaining.

But Hasek made sure nothing else entered the Senators' net, turning aside several scoring chances in the final minutes, with the Capitals pressing for the equalizer with six skaters for the final minute.

Ottawa left wing Peter Schaefer scored into an empty net with 21 seconds remaining to clinch Ottawa's fifth win in six games. Hasek finished with 23 saves, while Olie Kolzig made 24 for the Capitals, who fell for the fourth time in five games.

Capitals rookie Alex Ovechkin, meantime, saw his goal streak end at six games.

"We had some opportunities there and we got it going late to give ourselves a chance to put some pressure on them," Capitals defenseman Brendan Witt said. "We could have gave up being down 2-0, but we didn't."

It might have been a different, Pettinger acknowledged, had the power play performed better. He and his teammates had separate two-man advantages in the second period and again in the third. But they mustered a total of only four shots.

The Capitals' power-play unit entered the game ranked 28th in the league (13.6 percent) and finished 1 for 9.

"We'll work on it," Pettinger said, shaking his head. "We knew they were missing two top-end guys, but they are one of the top teams in the National Hockey League and it was a 2-1 game [late]."