Cats Stun Caps, 5-4

For the first 40 minutes of play in Florida on Tuesday night, things were going swimmingly for the Capitals. They scored first, added to their lead and carried a three-goal cushion into the final frame against the Panthers, who were seeking to avoid losing three straight games in regulation for the first time this season.

But Florida came out with fury and verve in the third, and the Caps not only weren't able to match it, they weren't able to stem the tide or to regain any semblance of momentum, either. The Panthers outshot the Caps 27-2 in the third, scoring four unanswered goals in the game's final 20 minutes to hand Washington a stunning 5-4 setback.

Sam Reinhart's power-play goal with 14.4 seconds left in regulation completed the comeback and ensured that the Caps would go home empty-handed.
"We stopped playing," laments Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "So that's two games in a row we stopped playing in the third period. And if you don't punch back, then the thing you're going to do is get punched, and we got punched for 20 minutes. That's on us."
For the 16th time in 23 games this season and for the ninth time in their last dozen contests, the Caps got on the board first in Tuesday's game against the Panthers, doing so just ahead of the first television timeout of the first period. With the Caps operating in the Florida zone, Connor McMichael took a couple cracks at banking the puck off Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and in. From behind the Florida net, the second one succeeded to put the Caps on top at 5:52.
Eleven seconds later, the Caps doubled their advantage. Mike Sgarbossa won the center ice draw after McMichael's goal, and the Caps went back into Florida ice. Brett Leason corralled a loose puck on the right side of the ice and perfectly fed Beck Malenstyn, who was driving hard to the back post. Malenstyn buried it, becoming the seventh Capital to record his first NHL goal this season and extending the Washington lead to 2-0.

But less than a minute later, the Panthers cut the lead in half when Joe Thornton pounced on a rebound of an Aaron Ekblad point shot and tapped it home from the top of the paint to make it 2-1 at 6:55 of the first.
Washington wasn't able to add to its advantage with the game's first power play in the back half, but it manufactured two more goals in the middle period to push its lead to three.
First, Dmitry Orlov sent Lars Eller out of the Caps' zone and into neutral ice, where Eller worked a give-and-go with Tom Wilson. After taking the return feed, Eller carved to the cage and beat Bobrovsky with a backhander to make it a 3-1 contest at 6:40.
Precisely six minutes later, the Caps made it 4-1 on a strong forecheck. Carl Hagelin put the puck deep in Florida ice, and Malenstyn got to it, chipping it to Nic Dowd. From behind the Florida net, Dowd put a fine feed to the front for the late-arriving Nick Jensen, who cruised into the slot and sniped a shot past Bobrovsky at 12:40.

As it turned out, that was the high point of the night for Washington. Just 23 seconds after Jensen's goal, Wilson was boxed for holding - the first of four late power plays for the Panthers - and Florida seemed to get some late life in the second period, even though it didn't score on that power play or in the remaining few minutes of the frame. The Panthers put four shots on Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov with the extra man, portending the deluge to come in the final 20 minutes.
Ryan Lomberg scored on a rebound at 3:23 of the third to make it a 4-2 game. Just over a minute later, at 4:40, Laviolette used his timeout to try to get the train back on the track.
"That we have to keep playing like we were in the first and second," says McMichael, when asked about Laviolette's message during the timeout. "It was unacceptable the way we were playing at the start of the third, and we weren't able to match that intensity we had in the first and the second, so it's disappointing."
When Florida's Frank Vatrano was sent off for tripping at 5:36, Washington's power play took the ice with an opportunity to restore its three-goal lead. Instead, Eetu Luostarinen got loose on a breakaway and scored a shorthanded goal to make it 4-3 at 6:09. The Caps still had 87 seconds worth of power play time, but they weren't able to generate as much as a shot attempt.
Florida buzzed the Caps' zone throughout the third, creating chaos and drawing penalties. Wilson was sent off again at 8:18, and this time Garnet Hathaway was stopped on a shorthanded rush on the Caps' first of only two shots on net in the game's final 20 minutes.
The Caps killed that penalty, but Florida would tie the game and take its late lead on the last of its two power plays in the game. With Dennis Cholowski off for cross-checking, Sam Bennett tipped home an Ekblad center point drive at 12:01.
Ironically, the Caps took their final penalty of the night during one of their all too rare forays into Florida ice in the final period. With just under a minute left, Malenstyn was sent off for goaltender interference, setting the stage for Reinhart's short side shot past Samsonov to win it for the Panthers at 19:45.
"We've got nobody to blame," says Laviolette. "We leave here with a loss in the column, and we've got to digest that for the next couple of days until we get back on the ice. We just stopped playing."