Capitals fall to Lightning in Overtime 5-4
The Washington Capitals dropped a game to the Tampa Bay Lightning by the score of 5 to 4 in overtime, squandering a great effort offensively from nearly every line.
1st Period
Lars Eller started off the scoring after Carl Hagelin forced a turnover at the Lightning blue line. Eller took the puck and beat Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy high glove to give the good guys the lead. That’s Eller’s 12 goal of the season.
2nd Period
Yeah this gets ugly, so shield your eyes.
Nikita Kucherov got the Lightning on the board early in the second with a power play dart from the right circle, his 36th of the year. Less than a minute later, an Alex Ovechkin “elbow” sent the Lightning back to the power play. Tampa captain Steven Stamkos tallied his 37th goal in the campaign 4 seconds into the Ovechkin minor. Nearly 5 minutes later, Tampa forward Anthony Cirelli banked a puck in off of Carlson during a net-mouth scramble. Washington defenseman John Carlson was on the ice for every single goal against.
Carl Hagelin and Lars Eller teamed up again, with Eller finding Hagelin on the back door to bring the Tampa lead back to within one goal for the Caps. Hagelin has now scored as many goals and recorded as many points in the 11 games he has been here than he did the entire time with the Penguins and Kings. Thank you Pittsburgh for paying him for us.
The Caps went back on the power play with 7 minutes to go in the second period. A scrum in front of the net led to a T.J. Oshie goal. Well deserved for Oshie, who was in the midst of a 9-game scoring drought. Assists came from Ovechkin and Carlson.
However, gasp, the Lightning returned fire, after a flimsy penalty call put Washington back on the penalty kill. A pretty passing sequence from Ondrei Palat, Stamkos, and Kucherov gave the Lightning the lead once more, with Kucherov scoring his 37th.
3rd Period
I can sum up the 3rd period pretty quickly. Lots of chances on both ends; both goalies standing strong; entertaining back and forth hockey.
However…
With a little over a minute to go, the Capitals pulled netminder Braden Holtby for the extra attacker, but seemingly nothing was going to beat Vasilevskiy. But with 53 seconds left, Kuznetsov, coming from the half wall to Vasilevskiy’s left, fired a shot that somehow beat the Tampa goalie to even the game up [insert fist-pumps and bird cellies].
Overtime
After a few rushes from both teams, Ovechkin carried the puck up on a 3 on 1, yet turned the puck over after wiping out trying to button hook back towards the center ice. Tampa defender Victor Hedman carried the puck through the Caps zone and opted to shoot the puck rather than pass, and beat Braden Holtby between his pad and glove.
Great 8 Thoughts…
- Okay, if you need to shower after sweating through this game, I don’t blame you. This is hands-down the best game that we’ve seen this year from a pure spectator, hockey fan standpoint. With that acknowledgment out of the way, its fair to say that the Capitals still played one hell of a game. 58 shots on Vasilevskiy. 58. Fifty-eight. Yeah, the Caps could’ve and probably should’ve scored more. But what an excellent game from the Caps that will lead to wins 9 times out of 10. The Capitals held Tampa to 28 shots, which is pretty outstanding.
- Penalties killed the Capitals. Again. Stay out of the box and they win this game. *[disclaimer] some of the calls were garbage, but when aren’t they.
- Michal Kempny was unable to leave the ice under his own power. A nasty sequence of hits/punches led to a scrum which led to Kempny twisting his knee, or something. I’m not a doctor.
- John Carlson had a brutal defensive game today, his passes were mostly off, but he did generate some good offense today. We need the 2018 playoffs John Carlson, not the variant that can’t make a cross-ice pass to save his life.
- The Capitals did a great job neutralizing Tampa’s passing ability. Zero goals at even strength. This game reminds me a lot of games 2 and 3 of the conference finals last year, where the Capitals should have won, but were outplayed on special teams.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov was the most dynamic forward on the ice tonight. The new line combos: Vrana-Kuzy-Oshie and Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson has paid off in spades so far. The puck dominance was there tonight and the goals will eventually follow. Kuznetsov seems to have regained that swagger that made him so dangerous last year. Kudos to the coaching staff for making the switch.
- Don’t like Chandler Stephenson in the lineup. I didn’t see anything positive about his game. Would rather have Jaskin or Boyd in the lineup.
- Holtby didn’t have his best game tonight, but he had some monster saves in the 3rd.
