ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning will limp into Verizon Center on Tuesday to face theWashington Capitals resembling the walking wounded.

Missing the likes of Steven Stamkos, Ryan Malone and Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay, which has lost 101 man games due to injury, has fallen from first place in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference to fourth in the division and fifth in the conference since losing Stamkos to a broken right tibia on Nov. 11.

Having been ravaged by injuries, the Lightning have been forced to use a patchwork lineup that features eight players with less than 50 games of NHL experience.

Despite it all, the Capitals, very familiar with the Lightning as former Southeast Division co-tenants, will not take them lightly.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Before the 2013-14 season, Washington Capitals coach Adam Oates singled out right wing Troy Brouwer when asked which player he expected to enjoy a breakout year.

It was a sensible prediction considering Brouwer's success in 2012-13. In 47 games, the 28-year-old finished second on the Capitals with 19 goals, which put him on pace for a career-high 33 over a full season. With his new role as the finisher on the second line, Brouwer enjoyed the new responsibilities bestowed upon him by the Washington coaching staff.

That is why Brouwer is taking his slow start this season so seriously. He has five goals and nine points, with one goal at even strength. It's a far cry from the numbers he expected from himself at this juncture.

"Coming off a season like last year where I was one of the guys who was looked at to put points on the board, be an impact every game, those expectations were a little bit higher than they have been in previous years," Brouwer told NHL.com. "Maybe that's the reason why I feel that I'm struggling, because I feel I should be doing more. I should be scoring more goals and putting up more points."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Based solely on statistics, Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green is mired in a slump.

Through 24 games, the 28-year-old is in search of his first goal, the longest season-opening drought of his nine-year career.

Green has come up empty on all 62 shots on goal, the most taken by any player in the League without scoring this season. It's certainly not the norm for the player who has led all defensemen in goals in three of the past five seasons and whose 91 goals since 2007-08 rank second among NHL defensemen.

Coach Adam Oates could tell Green was perhaps forcing things in an attempt to get off the schneid, which was negatively affecting him in other areas.

"I think when a guy gets in a so-called slump, and for him, it was just because he hasn't got a goal," Oates said. "To me, first thing I said was, 'That's not a slump.' Goals will come. For me, it's his touches and his decisions. If you're pressing to get a goal, you're going to skate in opportunities you're not supposed to skate at and not wait for it at the right time. I felt like just his reads were a little off."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Washington Capitals coach Adam Oates, typically calm and collected in demeanor, was visibly agitated after his team's 6-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday. It was a game in which the Capitals unraveled, blowing a 3-1 first-period lead by being undisciplined and taking their foot off the proverbial gas.

"If the guys don't know that we let one get away," Oates said on Wednesday, "shame on them."

The Capitals, who are in the midst of a season-long four-game losing streak, did not meet on Thursday, which allowed Oates' message to marinate as they sat down for Thanksgiving dinner.

"He gave us the day to think about it," right wing Troy Brouwer said. "He didn't say anything to us after the game. I think the guys already knew what to feel and what to think, to be honest."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Washington Capitals right wing Alex Ovechkin is in the midst of a career renaissance that began late last season. He has scored 43 goals in his past 45 games, including an NHL-leading 20 so far this season (the first time in his nine-year career he has been the first player to reach that total) and three in his past three games.

The problem, however, is that those three goals are the only goals the Capitals have scored over that span.

Entering Washington's game against the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday, Ovechkin has accounted for 29.8 percent of his team's goals (20 of 67). As a point of reference, the NHL single-season record is 29.5 percent set by Pavel Bure in 2000-01 as a member of the Florida Panthers.

The rest of the Capitals forwards are fully aware they must help their captain.

"I think our line has had numerous chances," left wing Jason Chimera said in regards to the third line, comprised of himself, Brooks Laich and Joel Ward. "We've just got to put them in. Me myself, I've had a lot of chances in the past five games and put nothing in. You've got to make them go in."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Upon returning to Kettler Capitals Iceplex on Thursday following their 4-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins the evening before, the Washington Capitals spent the bulk of their time in video sessions analyzing what arguably was their worst overall performance of the season.

What went wrong Wednesday reads like a laundry list of recurring issues: Sloppy passing and poor decision-making that prevented the Capitals from cleanly breaking out of the defensive zone and generating any sort of offensive rhythm, missed assignments, uninspiring responses to goals-against.

Another problem area exposed Wednesday was the sheer number of shots Washington is allowing.

The Penguins outshot the Capitals 40-18, with a 34-10 edge in even-strength shots. Including the Capitals' 4-1 victory against the St. Louis Blues on Sunday in which they were outshot 47-20, the 49-shot two-game discrepancy in shot differential was their largest in almost 10 years, according to JapersRink.com.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- It may come as a surprise to discover that 12 players in the NHL have scored more points than Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom's 439 since he entered the League in 2007-08, or that his 24 three-assist games are the most over that span.

That is perfectly fine with Backstrom. In fact, he prefers it that way.

"I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not going to look for attention," Backstrom told NHL.com. "That's not who I am. … I don't need it. I'm happy with the way it is."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green will not return to the lineup Wednesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN2) as he continues to work back from a lower-body contusion.

"Not ready, not 100 percent ready," coach Adam Oates said. "He could go, but you know what, [the Penguins are a] really good team and [we] don't want to put him in a position where he's behind the eight-ball a little bit."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- With his team trailing the Detroit Red Wings by two goals entering the third period Friday, Washington Capitals coach Adam Oates was in need of a spark.

After a failed power play to open the period, Oates altered his top two lines, reuniting Marcus Johansson, who had recently been centering the team’s second line, with Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin after nearly six games apart.

Oates’ intuition came to fruition immediately. On the reassembled first line’s first shift together, Johansson gathered a puck left for him by Backstrom near the end boards and fed Ovechkin in front for his 15th goal of the season, one that ignited Washington’s rally from two down to ultimately defeat Detroit 4-3 in a shootout.

It was the kind of fluid play that comes naturally with undeniable chemistry, which the Capitals’ top trio has firmly established by playing the bulk of their time with each other since late last season.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Despite slogging through the first period of their game against the Colorado Avalanche Sunday, the Washington Capitals seemed poised to stem and perhaps even turn the tide in their favor.

With 4:12 remaining in the second period, Joel Ward took advantage of a fortuitous carom off the end boards to beat Semyon Varlamov to tie the game at 1-1.

Yet it took all of 28 seconds for Washington's half-game of work to come undone. Nick Holden scored the game-winning goal -- his first career NHL goal -- on the ensuing shift as Colorado ultimately secured a 4-1 victory.

"It was a bang-boom-boom play," Ward said of Holden's goal, adding that Holden was his defensive assignment. "For them to come around and score right away, it was definitely a tough one."