Rangers lose to Capitals as Alex Ovechkin scores twice

WASHINGTON — These aren’t the same Washington Capitals the Rangers swept in the first round of the playoffs last spring.

Even without T.J. Oshie, who is spending the season on long-term injured reserve due to back trouble, they look a lot more dangerous than the group that was the last team to make the playoffs last season. And they are off to a fast start.

They jumped the Rangers from the start Tuesday night, getting two early goals from Alex Ovechkin and rode those to a dominant 5-3 win over the Rangers at Capital One Arena.

“They were good,’’ Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “They came out ready to play. I thought they were faster, more physical, and it showed right off the hop. I didn’t think we did our best off the beginning, and they kind of took it to us early.’’

The Caps (6-2) outshot the Rangers 46-19, and if not for another stellar performance by goaltender Igor Shesterkin, the score would have been much worse.

“Just too many shots against, too many chances to give up,’’ Trouba said. “Shesty played outstanding, and we still didn’t generate enough to win and let them have too much.’’

The first period was probably the Rangers’ worst period of the season. They were outscored 3-1, outshot 19-5, lost 16 of 23 faceoffs and were turning the puck over in really bad situations. Ovechkin had goals at 3:23 and 5:10, and Connor McMichael had the other goal for Washington, with Will Cuylle getting the Rangers goal.

Ovechkin, second all-time in goals scored, had career goals No. 855 and 856. He is 38 behind Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894.

“Their first had much more pop in it than ours did,’’ Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “Everywhere, from faceoffs, faceoff battles, defensive zone coverage, to their offensive zone play. We were chasing the game [and we] didn’t get much better at it, to be honest with you. For the second and third, there were spurts, but not enough.’’

Laviolette was particularly irked by the Rangers’ play in their own end. And after saying at the morning skate he was happy with the top defensive pair of K’Andre Miller and Adam Fox, in the third period, he split them up, reuniting Fox with his longtime partner Ryan Lindgren and putting Miller and Trouba back together.

“I thought it was off the mark a little bit tonight,’’ he said of his reconfiguring of the defense. “It was just to try and switch it up and give it a look. We’ll figure it out.’’

A hooking penalty by Dylan Strome against Sam Carrick in the final seconds of the first period gave the Rangers a power play to start the second, and they took advantage, with Mika Zibanejad’s shot/pass bouncing off Chris Kreider’s skate, and off goalie Logan Thompson and in to pull the visitors within 3-2 just 30 seconds into the period.

But that goal didn’t prove to be any kind of turnaround. Aliaksei Protas scored for Washington on a four-on-four situation — the Rangers have been outscored 3-0 in four-on-four play — to put the Caps up 4-2 at 4:30, but on the ensuing faceoff, Filip Chytil, the Rangers’ second-best player in the game (after Shesterkin) drove the net and redirected a pass from Victor Mancini to get the Rangers within 4-3 at 4:44.

But even then, the Rangers couldn’t build on that. They couldn’t get another goal over the final 35-plus minutes, and eventually, Nic Dowd finished the scoring with an empty-net goal for Washington with 35.8 seconds remaining.

According to the analytics site Natural Stat Trick, the Capitals had 48 scoring chances in the game, to the Rangers’ 21. They had 25 high-danger chances to the Rangers’ 10.

“I think any good team starts with good defense,” Laviolette said. “It leads to getting pucks out of your end, and it leads to playing offense. When you don’t play defense well, you end up spending too much time in your end.’’

Notes & quotes: Matt Rempe returned to the lineup in place of Jonny Brodzinski. Rempe played 5:01 and had a first-period fight with Dylan McIlrath, a former Rangers’ first-round draft pick . . . Mancini returned after being scratched the last game. He replaced Zac Jones.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.