POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Panthers 5, Caps 3

Turn Back Time - The last 48 hours or so are a painful reminder of how swiftly and severely a Stanley Cup Playoff series can swing, not that the Capitals were in need of such a reminder.

In the final few hours of Monday evening, the Caps were minutes away from closing out the Florida Panthers in Game 4 of the first-round playoff series between the two teams and taking a 3-1 lead in the series over the heavily favored Panthers. But Florida's Sam Reinhart scored a 6-on-5 goal with 2:04 remaining in regulation to force overtime, and Carter Verhaeghe won it for the Panthers in overtime, sending the series back to South Florida all even at 2-2.
Washington roared out to a 3-0 lead early in the second period of Wednesday's Game 5 at FLA Live Arena, but the Caps again weren't able to close out the Cats. Fueled by a series of Washington miscues and turnovers, Florida rallied for five unanswered goals to stun the Caps 5-3.
Verhaeghe put together a definitive performance in Game 5, having a heavy hand in all five Florida goals. He scored the Panthers' first goal, and he scored the goal that gave them the lead and turned out to be the game-winner. And he also dished out primary assists on each of the other three goals, establishing a Florida franchise record for most points in a playoff game. With 10 points (five goals, five assists), Verhaeghe is tied for the playoff scoring lead with Colorado's Cale Makar.
"There's two games that were played," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "There was a game to push it to 3-0 where I liked everything we did, including the power play, the penalty kill and the 5-on-5 play.
"And then there's the game that took place after that, where if you play against a team like Florida that is a high-octane team, we're just feeding them. And we can't. And so we've got to get back to the first part of that game and we've got to play it consistently for 60 minutes."
Similar to their Game 2 loss in Florida, the Caps played well for the first half of the game but unraveled thereafter. Even though Washington escaped the first period with a 1-0 lead on T.J. Oshie's third power-play goal of the series, the Caps spent the last several minutes of the opening period under siege in their own end of the ice.
"We couldn't catch a regroup after that penalty kill," says Laviolette. "The penalty kill did a great job, but it was the next shift or two where we couldn't get it out of our end. We got through that and made it through, and we continued to push once we got it back to 5-on-5. But again, it was two different games out there."
Washington desperately needed the reset that the end of the first period provided, and it came out strong in the second, scoring twice on as many shots early in the frame to take a 3-0 lead on goals from Justin Schultz and Oshie again. But the Caps played haphazardly the rest of the way, fueling the Florida attack with poor puck decisions, turnovers, lackluster defensive play and other mistakes that they might have gotten away with against a lesser foe.
In Game 2 of this series, Florida scored five goals in a span of 21 minutes and 12 seconds of playing time. In Wednesday's Game 5, the Cats struck for five goals in less than 30 minutes of playing time. Over the rest of the five games played in this series, the Caps have limited Florida to four goals at 5-on-5, one at 4-on-4 and one at 6-on-5.
In a span of 48 hours, the Caps went from being in control of the series to being on the verge of elimination. In order to keep their season going and to advance to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in four years, they'll need to win the next two games against the Presidents' Trophy-winning Panthers.
"There's things that we did to put ourselves in a position to be up 3-0 in the game, and that's the type of game that we have to play," says Laviolette.
They'll have at least one more chance to play that type of game, on Friday in Game 6 of the series at Capital One Arena.
Special Delivery -Despite being on the verge of elimination, the Caps continue to be one of the top teams in the playoffs in terms of their performance on special teams. Oshie's power-play goal in the first period marked the fifth time in as many games in the series that Washington scored with the extra man, the third-longest streak of its kind in franchise history. The Caps had six-game streaks with power-play goals in 1989 and again in 2018.
Oshie became the fifth player in Capitals history to notch a power-play goal in three consecutive games, following in the skate steps of John Druce (in 1990), Dmitri Khristich (in 1992), Al Iafrate (in 1993) and John Carlson (in 2016).
The Caps' power play is 6-for-20 in the series for a 30 percent success rate. Only Colorado (43.8 percent) and Edmonton (41.2 percent) have had more success with the extra man in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Washington's penalty kill was again perfect in Game 5, snuffing out all three Florida power plays on the night. The Caps' penalty killing outfit has been successful on each of its 16 postseason missions to date, and Washington is the only one of the 16 postseason entrants that has yet to yield a power-play goal against.
The last team to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs with as many as 16 straight successful kills was also the Capitals, who did so in the 2015 playoffs, over a span of eight games. The NHL record for most consecutive kills to start a playoff year is 33, set by the St. Louis Blues over the first eight games of the 2001 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
By The Numbers -Carlson led the Caps with 25:58 in ice time and eight shot attempts … Oshie and Lars Eller led the Caps with five shots on net each … Martin Fehervary led the Capitals with eight hits … Garnet Hathaway led Washington with four blocked shots, all of them in the first period … Nic Dowd won nine of 15 draws (60 percent).