Panthers Pounce on Caps, 5-1

Similar to their animal kingdom namesakes, the NHL's Florida Panthers are renowned for their ability to pounce. In Thursday's Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against the Caps at FLA Live Arena, the Cats took full advantage of their quick strike capability to square the best-of-seven set at 1-1 with a 5-1 victory over Washington.

The Capitals got the start they wanted and played the game they wanted to play over the first half of Game 2, but the Panthers struck for two goals on as many shots late in the first to grab the lead, and they did so again late in the second to seize control of the contest.
"The way we played the first period, I thought we did just about everything right, and we're down 2-0," laments Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "And then even to start the second period, I thought that we were doing the right things. And then they get a third and a fourth [goal], and I thought our game unraveled from there."
Despite outplaying the Panthers in the game's first 20 minutes, the Caps found themselves down two pucks at the end of the opening stanza. Just after the midpoint of the opening period, the Caps killed off the first Florida power play without as much as a shot on net, and they narrowly missed taking the lead when T.J. Oshie's backhander rang the goal post during that Panthers man advantage.
Florida struck for a pair of goals late in the first, taking a 1-0 lead on a fortuitous bounce at 16:20 when Aaron Ekblad's shot from above the right circle bounded in off of Caps defenseman Martin Fehervary, who was trying to block the drive.
Just over a minute and a half later, Florida doubled its lead on a much prettier goal off the forecheck. It started with a strong wall play by Anthony Duclair to get the puck to Jonathan Huberdeau, who was lurking above the right circle. Huberdeau took the feed and patiently worked his way lower, finally dishing a nifty backhand, cross-crease feed to Aleksander Barkov for a tap-in at the left post at 17:58.
Six seconds after the second Florida strike, the Caps went shorthanded again when Vanecek's clearing bid went over the window. Washington again killed off that penalty without issue, permitting just a single shot on net from distance.
The Caps did what they needed to do that that point, which was scoring the game's next goal. Washington halved the Florida lead on a Nicklas Backstrom power-play goal at 2:44 of the second. From the goal line on the right side of the Florida net, Backstrom slipped a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky on the short side to make it a 2-1 game.
On the very next shift, the Caps gave it right back. Florida restored its two-goal cushion when Mason Marchment threaded a shot through the five-hole of Washington goaltender Vitek Vanecek from the right dot. The Caps needed a save on the shot that put the Cats back up by a pair just 27 seconds after the Backstrom goal. At that juncture, the Capitals found themselves down 3-1 despite outshooting the Panthers 15-7 to that point.
Even after the Marchment goal, Caps were still in it, and even more so when Marchment took a needless double minor for both roughing and slashing Nick Jensen, and in the offensive zone to boot. The Caps weren't able to get one behind Bobrovsky during those four minutes, though he looked over his shoulder a couple of times. Washington's execution was otherwise off during the four-minute power play; it fanned on some shot tries and it turned the puck over in the offensive zone multiple times on the back half of that Marchment double minor.
"We had some opportunities to shoot them," says Backstrom. "I think we had two or three missed shots out there, where we had good opportunities to score. And one was actually laying behind their goalie. The margins are small in the playoffs, and we would have liked to score there. But sometimes they're not going to go in."
The Panthers seemed to draw momentum from the big kill, and they would soon salt the game away with a another set of goals on consecutive shots late in the second. The Caps seemed to sag some after failing to close the gap on the lengthy power play, and the Panthers started to generate some sustained time in the Washington end for the first time in the series.
When the Caps turned it over on a bid to exit their zone, Florida made it 4-1 on a 2-on-0 give-and-go down low, with Anton Lundell finishing a Sam Reinhart feed at 15:24.
Just over two minutes later, ex-Caps defenseman Radko Gudas sent Carter Verhaeghe into Washington ice, and the Florida forward fired a shot to the shelf behind Vanecek, making it 5-1 with 2:28 left in the middle period.
Ilya Samsonov took over in the Washington crease for Vanecek in the third, and he was peppered with 17 shots in a lackluster final frame for the Caps, stopping them all.
"It's nice to win," says Barkov. "That's all we want to do. Obviously we didn't play the right way in the first game. In this game, we kept building. We got better as the game went on, and [Bobrovsky] kept us in the game, gave us a chance to win."
"I thought we came out a little nervous again, and I thought [the Caps] came out really hard," says Panthers interim coach Andrew Brunette. "They didn't give us much space early again, and then we found our rhythm and found our game. I thought - especially after the big kill in the second - we really settled our nerves and got to playing how we want to play. I thought we did a lot of good things in that stretch."
The two teams tangle again on Saturday afternoon at Capital One Arena when the scene shifts to the District for Game 3.
"We've got a tight series going back to Washington," says Backstrom. "We're looking forward to playing in front of our fans."