With their hometown covered in snow, the Washington Capitals thought they would avoid any power outages by traveling to Atlanta Wednesday to take on the Thrashers. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
In their last game before this weekend's All-Star Break, the Caps lost 1-0 to the Thrashers for their seventh shutout loss of the season. The two teams also finished their season series with Atlanta winning four of six. Last season, the Capitals swept the season series.
After yet another scoreless first period, a bouncing puck and a bit of bad luck for the Caps led to the Thrashers' first and only goal. Nik Antropov finally broke the stalemate at 11:21 of the second period. Ron Hainsey dumped the puck into the offensive zone, which eluded Mike Knuble. Jeff Schultz also could not corral the loose puck and Freddy Modin poke-checked it away from him. Modin then curled around the right faceoff circle and found Antropov in the slot. Antropov walked in and fired a wicked wrist shot over Semyon Varlamov for his ninth goal of the season.
The Capitals would have a few chances to threaten, especially on a late power play opportunity in the second period. Despite outshooting Atlanta 36-24, the Caps could not get anything past Ondrej Pavelec, who stopped 110 of the last 111 shots he faced against them and finished the season series with two shutout victories.
Washington will not take the ice again until Tuesday against the Montreal Canadiens.