POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Panthers 3, Caps 2 (OT)

Even Here We Are --It's ironic that the Caps have been the best penalty killing team in these playoffs - succeeding on each of their 13 shorthanded missions in the first four games - and yet they let a 2-1 late lead slip away in Game 4 when the Panthers' Sam Reinhart scored with 2:04 remaining in regulation, while Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was on the bench in favor of an extra attacker.

Reinhart's tying tally forced overtime, setting the stage for Carter Verhaeghe, who evened the series with his second goal of the game and his third of the series at 4:57 of the extra session, before the Caps could get a shot off on Bobrovsky.
Florida's 3-2 victory in Game 4 sends the series back to South Florida all even at 2-2. The Caps were excruciatingly close to pulling out a victory in Monday's Game 4 at Capital One Arena; a minute before Reinhart's goal, Washington winger Garnet Hathaway's shot from long distance narrowly missed the empty net, inches away from giving the Caps a 3-1 lead late.
While the Panthers haven't been able to score on the power play yet in this series, they scored one of the most important goals of their season with a manpower advantage, but it won't go into the books as a power-play goal.
What should stick in the Caps' collective craw after this one is that they didn't display enough of a killer instinct in this pivotal contest in which a victory would have given them a commanding 3-1 series lead over the Presidents' Trophy-winning Panthers, a team that was tossing around words like "nerves" and "frustration" for much of the series to that point.
Although the Caps didn't play well enough to expect victory in Game 4, they never trailed until night's end when Verhaeghe pounced upon and then buried his own rebound. Midway through the third period, the Caps had all of 11 shots on net and their only goal to that point in a 1-1 game came on a fortuitous bounce off T.J. Oshie's leg on the Washington power play.
Florida essentially doubled up the Capitals in shot attempts, 73-37. The Panthers had only 29 seconds more power play time than Washington in Monday's Game 4, and the Caps even had 43 seconds worth of a 5-on-3 advantage - basically a gift from the officials, as it turned out - late in a second period of a 1-1 game and couldn't get anything going.
The whistles came out early in Game 4. There were coincidental minors whistled in the first minute of the first frame, giving us some 4-on-4 hockey. Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov needed to make a couple of good stops following Washington giveaways during that span, and soon after the sequence ended, the Caps had a pair of power plays in short succession, both off Florida penalties in the offensive zone.
Florida killed off the first Washington power play without incident, but the Caps cashed in early on the second one when a John Carlson clapper clanked off Oshie and into the net, as the winger tried to jump the rope. The good bounce provided a 1-0 Washington lead at 7:15 of the first.
In the back half of the frame, Florida pulled even during another stretch of 4-on-4 hockey. Aaron Ekblad carried into Washington ice on a 2-on-1 rush, and as Caps defenseman Martin Fehervary challenged him, Ekblad sauced a feed across to Verhaeghe, who tucked it under Samsonov from the top of the paint, making it a 1-1 contest at 14:08.
Florida had its first power play of the night about a minute later, but the Caps' penalty-killing outfit again held the Cats without a shot with the extra man, getting big blocks from Trevor van Riemsdyk and Oshie in the process.
The second period was a dreadful one for Washington; the Caps weren't able to jump in front with a power play 12 seconds into the middle frame, and then they took three straight penalties in short succession. Washington was able to kill them all off without falling behind, and it even had a 43 seconds worth of a 5-on-3 power play late in the period after Bobrovsky was whistled for a phantom tripping call on Evgeny Kuznetsov. But right off the face-off, an errant puck caught Carlson on the chin, opening up a wound that needed repairing, and taking him off the ice at a crucial point.
"Obviously it was a hard second for us," says Caps captain Alex Ovechkin. "we took lots of penalties, penalty killers do a good job, and obviously Sammy was outstanding."
In the third, the whistles were put away and the two sides played some 5-on-5 hockey for a change. The Caps took a 2-1 lead when Kuznetsov scored a dazzling breakaway goal midway through the frame.
But Bobrovsky denied Marcus Johansson on a late breakaway bid, and Garnet Hathaway's attempt at the empty net missed by inches, resulting in an icing against the Caps, and eventually, Reinhart's tying tally.
Verhaeghe's game-winner came on a rebound of his own shot, the only two shots on net by either side in a cautious and brief overtime session.
"I think third period, we play well, we play solid," says Ovechkin. "We kind of turned around the game. There was bad bounces, and it goes in. How I said, it's going to be a tough, long series. So move on. Forget about it, and move on.
Laviolette agreed with the captain that the third was Washington's best period, and it probably was, but on this night, the bar was low.
In a game of this magnitude, against a foe of this caliber, the Caps' Game 4 performance didn't have enough synch to it. It wasn't a lack of effort or physicality, but the physicality was part of the problem. Hits only happen when you don't have the puck, and there was far too much time without the puck for the Capitals in Game 4.
"We have to play more [in the offensive zone] and we have to support each other and get some more [offensive] zone time," says Kuznetsov. "I felt like in the third period it was a little better, and we'll make some adjustments for sure and move on from there."
Special Delivery -Special teams continues to be a bright spot for the Capitals in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With Oshie's first-period power-play goal, the Caps are now 5-for-17 (29.4 percent) with the extra man in the series, and they've scored at least one power-play goal in each of the four games.
Through four games of this series against Florida, the Caps' penalty killing outfit remains perfect. Washington has successfully snuffed out all 13 Florida extra-man opportunities in the series to date, and it is the only one of 16 playoff teams that has yet to be dented for a power-play goal.
Down On The Farm - While the Caps were suffering a painful Game 4 loss in overtime on home ice, the AHL Hershey Bears saw their season come to an end in a 4-3 overtime loss at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's Mohegan Sun Arena.
Down 3-1 late in a do-or-die Game 3 in a best-of-three opening round set with the Baby Pens, Hershey staged a furious late rally to even the game and force overtime. But Pens forward Alex Nylander ended the game and Hershey's season with an overtime game-winner at 8:22 of the extra session.
The Bears took an early 1-0 lead on Mike Sgarbossa's goal at 5:22 of the first, Garrett Pilon and Alex Alexeyev assisting. But the Baby Pens pulled even late in the first, and following a scoreless second, they took control of the contest with a pair of goals in the first 13 minutes of the third.
With 1:35 remaining in regulation, Pilon made it a 3-2 game with help from Lucas Johansen and Bobby Nardella. A mere 42 seconds later, Brett Leason tied it for the Bears to force extra hockey. Mike Vecchione and Aliaksei Protas assisted on Leason's tying tally at 19:07 of the third.
But the Bears' comeback stalled and their season ended on Nylander's second goal of the series. Pheonix Copley stopped 42 of 46 shots he faced in a losing effort.
By The Numbers -Washington outhit Florida, 56-46 … Carlson led the Caps with 25:01 in ice time and with three shots on net … Ovechkin and Kuznetsov each had six shot attempts to lead Washington … Hathaway, Nic Dowd and Martin Fehervary had seven hits each to lead the Caps, while Oshie and Johan Larsson were just behind them with six each … Fehervary, van Riemsdyk, Nick Jensen and Dmitry Orlov each had three blocked shots to lead the Caps … Lars Eller won six of nine draws (67 percent).