The Florida Panthers arrived in our nation’s capital looking to take a big two points from the best team in the Eastern Conference.
Alas, it was not meant to be, as the Panthers fell behind several times en route to a frustrating 5-3 loss to the Washington Capitals.
Washington opened the scoring in the latter stages of the opening period when Andrew Mangiapane came out of the corner and had nothing but space between he and Sergei Bobrovsky.
Mangiapane’s shot beat Bob on the blocker side to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead with 5:52 left in the first.
A late rush by Florida’s second line would lead to the Cats first goal of the game.
Sam Bennett jumped on a loose puck and fired a quick shot on Logan Thompson, then grabbed his own rebound and beat Thompson over the blocker, tying the game at one with 29.7 to go in the first.
Florida was given a power play early in the second period, but Tom Wilson made a great play at the Caps blue line to steal the puck from Aaron Ekblad, then moments later Wilson finished off a 2-on-1 to put Washington back in front.
This time their lead didn’t last long though as Sasha Barkov scored on a semi-breakaway despite having Jakob Chychrun draped all over his back less than three minutes after Wilson’s goal.
The Capitals have been one of the best third period teams in the NHL this season and they set out early on to show why.
Washington scored two goals less than four minutes apart to go up 4-2 just over the six-minute mark, the second of which saw goal-scorer Nic Dowd run into Sergei Bobrovsky for the second time in the game, leading to a big scrum afterwards.
During the ensuing four-on-four, Matthew Tkachuk then got one back for the Cats on a nice one-timer from the right circle, making it a one-goal game with 12:14 to go.
Florida put on a furious rush with Bobrovsky on the bench, but Carter Verhaeghe broke his stick taking a one-timer, and the Caps picked up the puck and immediately deposited it into the vacated net.
For good measure, Alex Ovechkin also cashed in when Florida pulled Bobrovsky again.
On to St. Louis.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Bennet has now scored four goals over his past eight games after going 18 straight without lighting the lamp.
Barkov extended his point streak to four games. He’s got two goals and seven points during the run.
Similarly, Sam Reinhart is also now riding a four-game point streak in which he’s racked up two goals and seven points.
Another four-game point streak now belongs to Tkachuk, and he’s scored in all four of them.
Tkachuk has racked up five goals and 10 points over his past six outings.
Verhaeghe pushed his point streak to three games. He’s got four goals and seven points since Saturday.
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