Capitals caught sleepwalking; Lose to Florida 5-3
Following a dominant victory against the Lightning on Sunday, the Capitals traveled to South Florida, taking on the Florida Panthers with the opportunity to clinch the Metropolitan Division with a win and Islanders loss.
1st Period
A Frank Vatrano goal in the first gave the Cats the lead early.
2nd Period
Three second period goals by Jonathan Huberdeau, Vinny Trochek, and former Capital Troy Brouwer sealed the Capitals fate.
3rd Period
But wait.. the Capitals made a collective decision to start playing 50 minutes into the game. An Evgeny Kuznetsov deflection on a John Carlson point shot finally got the Capitals on the board.
5 minutes later, T.J. Oshie found Nick Backstrom wide open on the left circle, who slammed the puck into the net for his 22nd of the season.
Less than a minute later, Oshie collected a puck in front of the net and dished it to Jakub Vrana, who deposited the puck in the net for his 24th goal of the campaign.
Despite a furious effort in the final 3 minutes, Washington could not will the puck into the net. With 26 seconds remaining in the game, Vinny Trochek recorded the empty net goal to seal the deal for Florida.
Quick Thoughts…
- The Caps have been the best team in the NHL since the trade deadline, rocketing up the standings and reclaiming first place in the Metro Division. This is one of those games that sucked in a “rather now than next week” kinda way. Playoffs start next week, and I would prefer the team that streaked through the toughest March schedule rather than the one that played tonight.
- Despite the poor play, do not forget that Florida has a very talented club full of good players. Aleksander Barkov, Trochek, Huberdeau, Mike Hoffman and his horrible fiancé, Aaron Ekblad, etc., are all solid players. They will be a real pain here in the next year or two. Some solid goaltending and defense and they would have been a playoff participant this year.
- The top line of Alex Ovechkin-Nick Backstrom-Tom Wilson was pretty dreadful. Tons of shots, but they look like they have never played together before, struggling to piece together a clean breakout.
- Kuznetsov was the most dangerous player on the ice for the Caps. He has been strong offensively with 33 points in his last 31 games.
- Copley did not fare very well tonight, surrendering 4 goals to a talented Panthers group, but I would argue that none were his fault. A few lucky bounces and some clueless defending really left him out to dry tonight.
- No games upcoming for the Capitals until Thursday, when they take on the Montreal Canadiens in game 81 of the 2018/19 season. They clinch the Metro with a win then.
Keep an eye out this week. The group here at Maryland Sports Blog is going to do a nice playoff preview prior to this week’s game. Stay tuned!
