Bolts Double Up Caps, 6-3

As good as the Capitals were in their 5-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night in Washington, they were every bit as bad and then some in Sunday's rematch in Tampa, particularly in the first period. The Caps dug themselves an early four-goal ditch on Sunday against the Bolts, giving up four goals and making a goaltending change before they were able to record their first shot on net of the game, and ultimately absorbing a 6-3 setback.

"We came out and we weren't even close to being ready to play," fumes Caps interim coach Kevin McCarthy. "It's pretty obvious there. It was like we were trying to catch a moving train out there. We were late to everything, and they were first on pucks. They won every puck battle they won every race for a puck. They did everything that we talked about that we needed to do. It was an all-around terrible, terrible 20 minutes."
Lightning blueliner Mikhail Sergachev scored twice and picked up four points in the first period, helping Tampa Bay to all the offense it would require in the game's first period.
"We did it all to ourselves," says Caps center Lars Eller. "I think it was the worst 20 minutes I've seen us play this year. We were horse [bleep], flat out."
From very early in the opening frame, it was apparent this would not be a good night for the Caps. Tampa Bay's first shot on net - a left point shot from Sergachev - clicked off Dylan Strome in front and found its way past Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper to give the home team a 1-0 lead at 1:23 of the first.
With the Lightning on the game's first power play several minutes later, Tampa Bay doubled its lead on a Nikita Kucherov one-timer, making it 2-0 at 8:19.
Shortly after the midpoint of the first, Bolts rookie Nick Perbix put a centering feed to the net front, and he was credited with his second goal in as many games when the puck clanked off the skate of Caps defender Erik Gustafsson and bounded in at 11:12 to make it 3-0.
Tampa Bay cashed in for the second time in as many first-period power play attempts at 16:22 of the first when Sergachev pounded a shot home from center point to make it 4-0. Sergachev's second goal of the game and the period ended Kuemper's evening. The Caps goaltender exited after allowing four goals on nine shots in 16:22 of work.
With assists on the other two Tampa Bay goals in the first frame, Sergachev became the first NHL defenseman with four or more points in a period in more than three years.
At the time of Kuemper's departure, the Caps were not only down 4-0, they were still seeking their first shot on net of the period. Alex Ovechkin finally managed to get a puck on lonely Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy at 17:10 of the first.
At the first buzzer, Lightning winger Pat Maroon and Caps defenseman Matt Irwin dropped gloves and fought, with Maroon picking up an additional minor for roughing that enabled Washington to start the second period on the power play.
Washington's extra-man unit wasn't able to spark the team then or at any point during the game, failing to record a shot on each of its first two opportunities of the game and going 0-for-6 on the night with just three shots on net in exactly 10 minutes worth of power play time.
"A lot of it is just puck decisions," says McCarthy of the Washington power play, which went 0-for-6 in each of the two weekend games against the Lightning. "We're putting ourselves in a position where we're making plays that aren't there, and then we're turning the puck over and we're spending too much time trying to break the puck out and get it back into the zone."
After killing off an Ovechkin double-minor for hi-sticking in the second, the Caps got on the board shortly after the top three lines were changed up. Skating on a line with Anthony Mantha and Evgeny Kuznetsov, Conor Sheary put the Capitals on the board at 18:04 of the second when he finished a Kuznetsov feed on a 2-on-1, beating Andrei Vasilevskiy to make it a 4-1 game.
More bad blood boiled over late in the frame, and Irwin again dropped the mitts and fought, this time with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. Irwin entered Sunday's game with five fighting majors in 407 NHL games, and he added two more to that total against Tampa Bay.
The latter half of the third period featured a flurry of goals, two on each side. Cole Koepke's first NHL goal came at 13:11, extending the Lightning lead to 5-1. After Eller scored to make it 5-2 with 3:01 left, the Caps pulled Lindgren for an extra attacker, only to yield an empty-net goal to Nick Paul at 17:16. Forty-two seconds later, Garnet Hathaway finished the scoring with his second goal of the season.
"We looked like we were a team out there at the top of the standings that had won 10 in a row, casual because we won one game," says Eller. "We've got to bring a whole different effort, attitude and battle mentality. We can do that and still be creative and make plays and hold onto pucks, but today they ran right over us. And I think it starts with the effort and attitude and mentality, and it just wasn't there. We were way too casual, and I think we thought we were maybe better than we were. We've got to humble ourselves a little bit here."