Caps' Carbery: 'I thought we would be a lot better' in Game 1

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was disappointed in his club's inability to match the Carolina Hurricanes' effort level in Game 1.

"I thought we would be a lot better than that, than we were tonight," Carbery said. "We'll regroup and we'll have to be better in Game 2."

The Hurricanes won 2-1 in overtime thanks to Jaccob Slavin's winner, but the stats weren't nearly as tight as the final score. Carolina outshot Washington 33-14, held a 44-31 advantage in hits, and controlled 74.52% of expected goals at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.

"We'll talk about the things that have to change for Game 2," Carbery said. "There's a lot of X's and O's, there's a lot of physicality stuff, there's a lot of puck-battle stuff. We'll narrow it down, because you could obviously go down about 20 different avenues from tonight."

He added, "It wasn't good, and that's the bottom line. Our entire game was not good."

Carbery did credit goaltender Logan Thompson, saying he was "fantastic" in the loss.

Game 2 is scheduled for Thursday in D.C.