Washington Capitals 4, New York Islanders 3 [Stanley Cup Playoff Game 2 Stats]

If the Islanders were flying high after their victory in game one over the Capitals, it didn't show here as the team crashed hard en route to a 4-3 loss where the score doesn't show how bad the entire team really was.

The Islanders had the opportunity to take a two-game lead heading into Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and really have the house rocking. They did not do that as they went on to have their worst raw possession performance all season, second-worst when adjusting for score effects (only their performance on Feb. 28 against the Hurricanes was worse).

The Box Score

The only people that played well were Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin.  Clutterbuck scored, lead the team in possession, lead the team in scoring chances and lead the team in Corsi attempts  He played a great game, but if a fourth line player is leading in all of those statistics then there's a good chance of a loss.  Martin was also shooting and drew a penalty.

The first line did manage to score, but they didn't have great possession considering the zone starts that they received.  They could have played a better game, though it is encouraging to see Nikolay Kulemin rebound a bit from his game on Wednesday.  Ryan Strome has to watch his temper as he took a very non-playoff like penalty which lead to a Washington goal.

The special teams also collapsed in addition to the team at even strength.  They allowed two scoring chances and three shot attempts in less than a minute.  They also allowed Nicklas Backstrom to waltz into the slot and get off an easy shot attempt which Jaroslav Halak had a shot at but couldn't track down.

The second and third lines were largely responsible for the collapse as their possession numbers were terrible and they were hemmed into their own zone for great periods of time (though broken sticks played a hand).  Michael Grabner had the worst game possession wise, though Anders Lee wasn't much better as he was out for a goal against when he was with Martin and Casey Cizikas.

Perhaps the worst part of the game was that they couldn't take advantage of a rookie goalie who was making his playoff debut and wasn't having his best game.  Philipp Grubauer was less than stellar taking the place of an influenza-ridden Braden Holtby but they quickly stopped testing him once they were up three to one which was a large reason Washington was able to come back.

With Islanders Leading/Capitals Trailing

Many people were rather vitriolic with their comments at yet another two goal lead lost by the Islanders.   Looking at the chart it clearly shows how they were able to lose control so easily.  They were outshot 25 to 12 which will obviously result in more losses than wins, but their performance at even strength wasn't exactly stellar either.

With Score Tied

Their performance in a tie game was considerably worse than the one they put forth with the lead, but Grubauer wasn't good at which resulted in a Islanders lead in spite of that fact. The period breakdown isn't shown in the chart, but they were outchanced considerably both when the game was tied at zero and when it was tied at three.  Halak didn't play fantastically either.

The team is going to have to work hard to forget that this game ever happened.  They were outperformed in all aspects of the game with the exception of the goaltending and even that was pretty poor.  Hopefully this is just a glitch because if they play like this with Holtby back then the rest of the series will be rather short.