Unfortunately for the Caps, Vasilevskiy proved to be impenetrable at 5-on-5 for the remainder of the evening.
Washington played a strong first, getting out of its end consistently and cleanly, pushing the play toward the Lightning end of the ice, and limiting the home team to just one shot on net in the first 10-plus minutes. Each team had one power play opportunity in the first, but Leason's was the only tally in the game's first 20 minutes.
The Caps opened the second period with a brief carryover power play, and they nearly doubled their lead during that 25-second stretch. But Vasilevskiy made a dazzling left pad stop - probably his best of the night - to deny Tom Wilson from the top of the paint, keeping his team within a goal.
With their youthful fourth line on the ice, the Caps were guilty of icing the puck early in the middle frame. Playing in his first NHL game, Washington center Aliaksei Protas lost the defensive-zone draw and was beaten to the net by Bolts center Anthony Cirelli, who set up Alex Killorn for the tying tally at 3:18 of the second, just five seconds after the icing.
"It was just a face-off scrum; it came off of an icing," recounts Laviolette. "They made a line change to get the match-up they wanted, the face-off went sideways, and it ended up in a bit of a scrum."
Less than two minutes later, Wilson gave his team a chance to get the lead back when he drew a tripping call on Cirelli. The Caps had a few good looks on the man advantage, but they didn't score. And seconds after Cirelli came out of the box, he drew a hooking call on Dmitry Orlov to put the Lightning on the power play.
Early in that Lightning power play came the turning point of the game, Wilson and Killorn collided high in the Caps' zone, and the zebras opted to send Wilson off for interference rather than have the Caps winger draw his third penalty of the game, or to let the whole incident slide as incidental contact, which is what it was. The call on Wilson gave the Lightning a 5-on-3 power play of 80 seconds in duration, and Cirelli scored on the two-man advantage at 8:40 of the second to give the Lightning a lead it would not relinquish.
"I disagree [with the call]," asserts Laviolette. "it's not a penalty."
The Caps generated some good scoring chances at 5-on-5 - both in zone and off the rush - but Vasilevskiy was the equal of all of them. He stopped John Carlson in a 1-on-1 situation with seven minutes left in the second after the Washington blueliner took an alert feed from Protas.
Early in the third, the Bolts extended their lead. The Caps turned the puck over in neutral ice, and Taylor Raddysh sent Brayden Point into Washington ice with speed and a step. Point beat Vitek Vanecek to make it a 3-1 game at 2:56.
Washington pulled to within a goal with 8:22 left in the third, making it a 3-2 game on a Conor Sheary power-play goal. From the top of the paint, Sheary expertly deflected an Evgeny Kuznetsov feed behind Vasilevskiy.
