POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Bolts 6, Caps 3

Mistakes Were Made - In its long awaited and highly anticipated first meetings of the year with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night at Amalie Arena, Washington did not put its best foot forward in the game's first 20 minutes. The Caps made some miscues in the first, and in doing so they put themselves in a tough spot against the league's top team, down two goals after the first period.

The Capitals rebounded to play better hockey over the final 40 minutes, but the damage was done and the Caps were merely chasing the Lightning for the duration of the evening. Tampa Bay netted a pair of empty-net goals in the game's final minute, making the 6-3 final far less representative of the 60 minutes of hockey.
Although the Caps did some good things in Saturday's game, they did not play well enough to beat an elite team like the Lightning, and they did not play nearly as well as they've played in winning 10 of their previous 12 games.
"I think just a better start, obviously," says Caps right wing T.J. Oshie. "You get a start like that against a high caliber team that can put you away, and that's really what it was - we were chasing from behind the rest of the time, and it was all mental errors, things we can clean up.
"They got the best of us in the first [period] there, and then it was a pretty good battle from there on out. So just clean up the first, and we'll learn from that."
It was a physical affair, and a very entertaining contest for the 19,092 spectators in attendance, and it was a good table-setter for the next game between these two teams on Wednesday in Washington. It had the look and feel of a playoff game in mid-March.
"You could tell it got a little bit nasty there, a lot of scrums," says Oshie, "which I think is awesome. It's fun to play in these games. They had a lot of emotion; we had a lot of emotion. So it was a good one, it was a fun one - a little bit of a playoff atmosphere."

Even With Esposito -Ovechkin scored the game's only special teams goal, a power-play tally in the second period. It was the 246th power-play goal of his career, tying him with Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito for fifth place on the league's all-time ledger for that category.
As the Lightning's longtime radio analyst, Esposito was on hand to witness Ovechkin pulling even with him. Those two are one extra-man tally behind Hockey Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille (247) for fourth place; Esposito is not going to catch him, but Ovechkin might.
Once the Caps captain is able to move past Robitaille, he will trail only all-time leader Dave Andreychuk (274), Brett Hull (265) and Teemu Selanne (255), Hockey Hall of Famers all.
Andreychuk was also on hand to witness Ovechkin's power-play goal in Saturday's game. Andreychuk captained the Lightning to its only Stanley Cup championship in 2003-04 and now serves the team as its vice president of corporate and community affairs.
Forty - Although Caps winger Brett Connolly was not able to become the third Washington skater in as many games to reach the 20-goal plateau for the first time in his NHL career, he did reach the 40-point mark for the first time. Connolly reached that plateau in the third period when he was credited with the secondary helper on Ovechkin's second goal of the game.
Killing It - Tampa Bay's power play is not just the best in the league this season, but at 29 percent heading into Saturday's game, the Bolts' extra-man outfit was tied for sixth best ever in the expansion era (since 1967-68).
Washington ran into a rough patch of penalty trouble late in the first when Tom Wilson was taken off for hooking in the offensive zone while the Caps were on a power play, putting the two sides at four-on-four. But when Connolly was busted for holding in the offensive zone a dozen seconds later, the Caps were suddenly facing the specter of a four-on-three that was soon to morph into a five-on-three power play, and with Washington already down 3-1.
The Caps were able to navigate their way successfully through that stretch, and they managed to kill off all four Tampa Bay power plays on the night, limiting the Lightning to just three shots on net in six minutes of extra man time.

"Excellent job by the penalty kill," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "Their numbers speak for themselves. We know what their numbers were coming into the game, special teams-wise, and to kill a five-on-three against that team can a lot of times be a turning point in a game, and I thought it was. It gave us a little bit of momentum and we got some energy out of it, and started to make a push."
"I thought that was a big reason why we were in that game," says Caps goalie Braden Holtby. "Our penalty kill was awesome. [The Lightning] made some great plays moving it around, and we stuck with it, trusted each other to do our own job. A lot of the good looks they got, they didn't get shots through because we were in lanes and had our sticks in the passing lanes. That was a good night for our PK, to know that if we bring that every night we are going to have a good chance of winning."
Six-Pack Of Hat Tricks - Tampa Bay's Alex Killorn scored into an empty net in the final minute of Saturday's game, notching the sixth hat trick at Washington's expense this season. Each of those six hat tricks has come since the calendar turned to 2019; the Caps have yielded those six three-goal games in a span of just 27 games.
Prior to the first of those six hat tricks, the Caps allowed their previous six hat trick over a much more leisurely span of 467 games, dating back to late in the 2012-13 season.
This season's total of six opposition hat tricks is the most the Caps have yielded since they were victimized six times by a pretty fair group of six players back in the 1992-93 season. The list: Teemu Selanne, Alexander Mogilny, Eric Lindros, Kevin Dineen, Kevin Stevens and Mario Lemieux.
Selanne, Lindros and Lemieux are Hockey Hall of Famers, and Mogilny has a chance of joining them someday. Dineen finished his NHL career with 355 goals and Stevens wound up with 329.
The last time Washington allowed more than six hat tricks in a season was in 1991-92, when it surrendered seven. The franchise record for most hat tricks allowed is likely to be safe for all of our respective lifetimes; the 1975-76 Caps were victimized for 13 of them in an 80-game season.
Down On The Farm - The AHL Hershey Bears were at home on Saturday night, hosting the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Hershey skated off with a 5-1 victory. Riley Barber scored twice and Mike Sgarbossa notched four points to spearhead the Hershey attack.
Garrett Pilon gave the Bears a lead at 9:31 of the first, and Hershey never trailed. Pilon's ninth goal of the season came with help from Shane Gersich and Ryan Sproul. At 18:30 of the first, Hershey doubled its lead when Aaron Ness netted his fourth goal of the season on the power play, Juuso Ikonen and Sgarbossa assisting.
Early in the second, Barber made it 3-0 with another power-play goal - his 30th of the season - from Ness and Sgarbossa. After Bridgeport scored its lone goal of the game less than two minutes later, Barber made it a 4-1 game with his 31st of the season at 4:48 of the second. Sgarbossa provided the lone assist on Barber's second goal, and then finished the scoring with his 27th goal of the season at 10:22 of the second. Barber and Liam O'Brien picked up helpers on the final goal of the game.
Ilya Samsonov stopped 18 of the 19 shots he faced in the Hershey nets to improve to 17-12-2 on the season.
The 35-22-3-4 Bears are off until Tuesday when they host the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at Giant Center.
By The Numbers -John Carlson led the Caps with 27:12 in ice time and two blocked shots … Ovechkin led the Caps with seven shots on net and 16 shot attempts … Wilson led the Caps with seven hits.