Bolts Beat Caps, 4-2

Almost two months ago in Las Vegas against the Golden Knights, the Capitals dug themselves a three-goal first-period hole against one of the league's top teams, and they did it while playing their second game in as many nights, when their collective energy stores weren't likely to be at peak levels.

On Tuesday night at Capital One Arena, the Caps repeated that same script against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Predictably, they suffered the same fate as they did in that Vegas game on Dec. 23, a 3-0 Washington loss. The Lightning left town on Tuesday with a 4-2 victory.

"The big thing for us was we knew they played yesterday," says Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "And the key for that is you've got to get the lead, and that's what we wanted to do."

That's what the Lightning did, and it took them less than three minutes to do so.

Washington put itself in a tough spot right off the hop, putting Tampa Bay's second ranked power play unit on the ice just 34 seconds into the first period when ex-Bolt Brett Connolly was sent to the box for an offensive-zone interference penalty. The Caps came within four seconds of successfully snuffing out that call on Connolly, but a couple of failed clearing bids late in the kill ultimately proved to be their undoing.

Tampa Bay's Tyler Johnson broke up a Washington clearing try, pushing the puck to Yanni Gourde along the left wing half wall. Gourde sent it down to Ryan Callahan, effectively creating a two-on-one down low. Callahan waited for the right moment to feed Brayden Point on the weak side, and Point buried it for a 1-0 Tampa Bay lead at 2:30 of the first period.

With exactly four minutes remaining in the first, Tampa Bay doubled its lead to 2-0 on an extended shift in the offensive zone. Andrej Sustr let go of a right point shot, and veteran Caps killer Chris Kunitz leaned in to get a stick on it, deflecting it past Caps goalie Braden Holtby.

Less than two minutes later, the hole got bigger. From his own blueline, Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman noted a Washington line change, and he fired a sharp pass to the Capitals line, springing Point into the attack zone with at least a step on each of the red sweaters in pursuit. Point carried the puck in on his backhand, and as he reached the net he drifted to the right, slipping it into the net on his backhand as Holtby moved with him. Point's second goal of the night turned out to be the game-winner at 17:52 of the first.

"We didn't really have a bad period," says Caps coach Barry Trotz of his team's first 20 minutes. "We made three mistakes, and [the Lightning] got all three of them. One was a little bit of a failed clear, one was a turnover and we got beat back to the net on a deflection and the third one was a line change. You look at the period, and they didn't have very many shots; I think they were 8-8 or 6-6, or something like that. And the scoring chances weren't one-sided or anything. But they had three goals, and we dug ourselves a hole."

In the second, the Caps set to the task of digging out of that hole. Washington played a strong final 40 minutes, but it wasn't enough to offset that early three-goal deficit.

The Capitals had more sustained shifts in the offensive zone than they do on most nights. They had their cycle game going well, and they often had the Lightning hemmed in its own end. The Caps poured pucks at Tampa Bay goaltender Andrej Vasilevskiy, the NHL's leader in wins, and they showed that despite having played the day before, they had plenty of energy and verve with which to work.

Washington chipped away at the Lightning lead in the second, getting on the board with a power-play goal of its own midway through the middle stanza.

Lars Eller and Dmitry Orlov exchanged the puck up high in the zone, and when Orlov sent it back to the Caps center, he opened up and blasted a one-timer past Vasilevskiy from the top of the right circle, cutting the lead to 3-1 at 9:32.

The Caps went into the third still down a pair of pucks, but Alex Ovechkin shaved the deficit down to a single goal when he slipped a shot through Vasilevskiy from the left circle at 11:02 of the final frame to make it a 3-2 game.

Two shifts later, Washington was buzzing the Bolts' zone, seeking the tying tally. The Caps had the Bolts hemmed hard in their own end, and Evgeny Kuznetsov's line was playing keep away from the Bolts until a Christian Djoos passed didn't reach its intended destination, going instead to the tape of Bolts blueliner Braydon Coburn. Coburn immediately sent Nikita Kucherov into the Caps' zone on a breakaway, and Kucherov beat Holtby with his trademark "non-shot" move - just as he did to the Caps goalie less than a month ago at the NHL's All-Star Game in Tampa - letting the puck drift through the goaltender's legs to make it 4-2 at 12:58.

All five of the Lightning skaters on the ice had been out for more than a minute when the red light went on, but it was the Caps who got scored upon, and that was the game.

"The key to getting better is learning from your mistakes, and obviously I didn't do that," laments Holtby of the Kucherov goal. "But I was just trying to play it patient. I wasn't trying to cheat towards that move, and he came at it a different way.

"That's on me for not recognizing it. It's not a goal I can give up in that situation after our team battled the way they did, especially in the third. That's my chance to pitch in to creating a win, and I didn't do it."