After the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped its season opener 5-1 to the Rangers in New York on Thursday, the Caps knew they’d be up against a buzzsaw on Saturday night in the Lightning’s home opener at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa. The Caps got good enough goaltending to sweep the weekend set of back-to-back games, but a lackluster first period in which they spotted the Bolts a pair of goals proved to be their undoing in a 3-1 loss.
Charlie Lindgren was outstanding in net for Washington; he finished the night with 27 saves on 29 shots; the third Lightning goal was a Jake Guentzel empty-netter with 2:05 left in the third. But the Caps won only two of 14 first-period face-offs, a suboptimal situation for a team playing for the second time in as many nights.
Even after the Caps found their footing in the second period, they were unable to establish much in the way of a consistent or dangerous attack. Too many offensive zone forays were brief and fruitless.
“The first put us behind the eight ball, not nearly good enough to start the to start the game, and it ends up costing us two points tonight,” laments Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “The second and third were fine. I thought we did some good things in those 40 minutes and it’s probably pretty even, I would say. But we outscore them one nothing in the in the last 40 minutes. Just the first period cost us.”
The first stoppage of the game was for the first goal of the game, off the stick of Bolts blueliner Charle-Eduoard D’Astous at 2:26 of the first. From the left wing corner, Brandon Hagel dished a diagonal feed to D’Astous at the right point. After creeping a closer to the cage, D’Astous whipped a wrist shot from the high slot to the twine to put Tampa Bay on top early.
Tampa Bay outskated the Caps in the first; the Lightning was quicker in all three zones and it created a number of good looks early, drawing a power play in the front half of the frame as well. The Caps managed to kill off that advantage, but the Bolts owned an 11-2 advantage in shots on net shortly after the midpoint of the opening frame, and the Bolts doubled their lead late in the first.
With D’Astous carrying out of his own end, the Bolts went 200 feet in an instant, and once in Washington ice, they executed a nifty tic-tac-toe sequence from Guentzel to Hagel to Conor Geekie to the back of the net at 16:30.
In the second, the Caps warmed to the task some, but they weren’t often in synch with one another. As a result, offensive zone time and scoring chances were few and far between.
Fortunately for Washington, Lindgren kept the game close, and the Caps were able to put together one good offensive zone passing sequence, resulting in a goal that cut the Lightning lead in half at 7:04 of the second.
Boone Jenner picked off an errant Lightning breakout feed, sending Justin Sourdif into Tampa Bay territory. From high on the right side, Sourdif put the puck to the left wing corner, where Jenner was able to get to it first. The veteran pushed the puck out to Jakob Chychrun at the left point, and he put a precision slap pass on Sourdif’s tape. Sourdif’s redirection beat Bolts goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to make it a 2-1 contest.
“I kind of crossed the blue,” recounts Sourdif. “I heard Boone call for it and he was wide open. I missed him with the pass there; he did a good job to retrieve that, get it to the point, and I saw Chychy pick his head up there. So, whether it was a shot on net and a rebound or just finding me directly, I knew he was going to get it to the net. So, I just followed up there.”
Washington lost the services of defenseman Matt Roy late in the second; he took only three shifts after the Sourdif goal and didn’t play in the third.
“Lower body,” says Carbery of Roy. “We’ll get him evaluated when we get back to D.C.”
The game got a bit cantankerous late in the second, leading to Vincent Desharnais’ first fight as a Capital; he dropped mitts with Lightning blueliner Emil Lilleberg, who left the game after two early third-period shifts.
There were also a couple sequences of 4-on-4 hockey when tempers flared again after the bout, and Tom Wilson was dismissed to the room late in the contest with a 10-minute misconduct.
Although the Caps had a bit more offensive zone presence late – and they were all over Vasilevskiy with an extra attacker after Guentzel made it 3-1 – they couldn’t generate enough offense to scrape a point from this one. They were held to just 20 shots on net for the night.
“I think it's just making the right reads,” says Chychrun. “There are times you’ve got to live to fight another day and put a put a puck in a good area and give yourself a chance to go get it back. And there's times to make a play. And I think sometimes we're just we're zigging when we should be zagging. But that's just a natural part of the game. You're not going to be perfect at all times, but it's just doing your best of recognizing that in the moment and trying to turn it around as quick as you can, and get back to giving yourself the best opportunities to generate. You don't even have to generate; it's just possession in the [offensive] zone, getting your forecheck, recovering pucks, and just wearing them down.
“That's kind of a big thing we want to do is spend more time in their end. And I felt like they probably did that to us tonight.
All things considered, playing two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference on the road on consecutive nights, and after they had each dropped their season opener, the Caps had a decent first weekend of the season. Most importantly, they got good enough goaltending to win both games.
“I thought he was fantastic tonight,” says Carbery of Lindgren. “We give them that one down Broadway to open up his game, which isn't fair to him. So, we're down 1-0, and he still had to make some big saves in the first period, even just to keep that [at 2-0]. And then as the game evened out in the second and third period, he still – just like their guy – had to make a few key saves. He matched those and made -- whatever it was – four or five really quality saves on his part. So, I’m proud of him. He played well tonight.”
