WASHINGTON — The personnel juggling and the experimenting continues as Rangers coach David Quinn tries to find some traction in this strange schedule to start the season.

Quinn broke up his top line before the game, switched two defensive pairs, inserted Brendan Lemieux after a healthy scratch, demoted “tired” rookie Kaapo Kakko during the game and benched defenseman Tony DeAngelo for all but two shifts after the first period.

All this as his team lost their third straight game, a 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Capitals here on Friday night.

Having played just three games in the first 13 days since opening night, Quinn’s team was jarred by this back-to-back that started with a 5-2 loss to the Devils in Newark on Thursday. But he came back by inserting Chris Kreider onto the right side of the top line with Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad, and they combined for the team’s only even-strength goal, a sweet give-and-go between Kreider and Panarin that the latter buried for his third goal of the season.

“We have a lot of very capable players, and those two are incredible players,” Kreider said. “I just try to skate and win pucks for them and get to the front of the net.”

Immediately after the game, Quinn said it was “tough to tell” how he thought that line worked, adding: “I liked some of the things that line did, but I’ll have to watch the film a little bit more.”

The move bumped Pavel Buchnevich down to the left side of the second line, which started with Brett Howden and Kakko. Buchnevich scored a first-period power-play goal, the team’s first tally on the man-advantage after going 0-for-10 in the previous two games.

Kakko then opened the third period on the third line, with Lemieux and Ryan Strome. Quinn said the 18-year-old, taken with the No. 2-overall pick, “looked tired.” He finished with a minus-2 rating in 15:56 of ice time.

Quinn didn’t want to elaborate on why he benched DeAngelo, who was on for two goals against and got just two shifts in the second period before not seeing the ice in the third.

“As a team, we just didn’t defend well,” Quinn said in response. “It’s something we felt we were going to do. It’s a coach’s decision.”

Even before DeAngelo was benched, Quinn had switched his previous partner, Marc Staal, to go with Jacob Trouba. That started DeAngelo with Libor Hajek, only keeping the Brady Skjei-Adam Fox duo together.