Aiming for a fourth win in a five-game homestand on Wednesday night against the Florida Panthers, the Caps fell just shy of the mark. They took a 3-2 lead into the third period, but a pair of agonizing mistakes were made late, and they cost the Caps a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Cats at Capital One Arena.
Sam Reinhart scored on the only shot of overtime, beating Caps’ center Evgeny Kuznetsov to the net and lifting the puck over Washington netminder Darcy Kuemper for the game-winner, just 15 seconds into the extra session. Panthers’ captain Sasha Barkov set up the play, sending Reinhart into Washington ice with an indirect feed.
“Kuzy out of position,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery, explaining what happened on the game-winner. “He chased down ice and ended up losing a foot race. If you’re going to chase down ice, you just can’t get beat. He got beat.”
Barkov also played a part in setting up the tying tally in the third, making the Caps pay for an unnecessary icing call by winning the ensuing face-off ahead of Evan Rodrigues’ tying goal at 3:33 of the third, six seconds after Barkov’s face-off win. Rodrigues beat Caps’ defenseman Alex Alexeyev to the back door for a tap in at the right post.
Carbery was pleased with his team for most of the first period, but not so much thereafter, and he lamented his team’s puck decisions overall, and particularly on Rodrigues’ goal.
“It was the icing in the third, and the coverage on the back side,” says the Caps’ bench boss. “You’re going to make mistakes; it’s hockey, it’s sports. There’s going to be mistakes throughout the game and mismanaged pucks and all that sort of stuff. You just can’t make egregious mistakes, and those are examples. You just can’t lose a guy on the back side and give up a back door tap in. You can’t ice the puck when we’re already tired and there’s [other] options.”
Anthony Mantha scored twice for Washington in Wednesday’s game, but the big winger departed the game in the third period under scary circumstances; he took a puck to the head when a Kuznetsov shot lightly deflected off a Florida defender and caught Mantha up high. He immediately went down in some distress, and he had to be aided off the ice and down the tunnel with 7:47 left in the third.
Mantha’s departure was unfortunate because he and linemates Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas were likely Washington’s best unit on this night; the trio was responsible for all three Caps’ goals in the game and each of the three finished the night with two points.
“I’m not sure,” says Carbery, asked for a postgame update on Mantha’s condition. “I haven’t heard anything on his status; we’ll re-evaluate [Thursday].”
For just the third time in 11 games this season, the Capitals drew first blood on the scoresheet in Wednesday’s game. The goal was of the fluky variety, but nothing that lights the lamp is tarnished for the Caps these days.
Just after the midpoint of the first frame, Mantha carried into Florida ice and tried to send a feed to McMichael. The pass didn’t get through; it caromed off Florida center Anton Lundell in the high slot, then bounded toward the net front where it trickled through Sergei Bobrovsky to give Washington a 1-0 lead at 10:42.
Florida rallied back for a pair of goals in the back half of the first to take a 2-1 lead to the room at first intermission.
About two minutes after the first of Mantha’s goals, the Panthers got even. From just above the goal line, Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk put a feed to the high slot for Oliver Ekman-Larsson. From there, the veteran defenseman issued a well-placed shot that went just over Darcy Kuemper’s right pad, squaring the score at 12:49.
Less than four minutes later, Florida took the lead when Reinhart made a nice feed from the corner to set up Barkov’s fourth goal of the season, a quickly released snapper from the bottom of the left circle to the top far corner of the cage at 16:45.
In the front half of the second, Protas and McMichael hooked up on a beauty of a shorthanded goal to even the game. Protas used his boardinghouse reach to safely usher the puck out of harm’s way in Washington’s end. He carried the puck far from his body, sending McMichael into Florida ice with a step on a Panther’s backchecker. McMichael beat Bobrovsky with a nifty backhander at 6:13.
“I saw their second guy kind of let off the gas a little bit,” recounts McMichael. “I saw an opening and I just took it. Pro made a hell of a play over to me, and I just had to finish the rest.”
“That’s a great goal from him, because I didn’t really see him,” says Protas. “I was more focused on protection, because the [penalty kill] is more about just getting the puck deep. I heard him; he talked to me, and I just moved it there. Everything else is on him, so great play.”
It wouldn’t be a 2023-24 Caps game if Washington didn’t have a goal taken off the board via coach’s challenge, and that happened for the fifth time in the last seven games, just ahead of the midpoint of the middle period. Sonny Milano appeared to have given the Caps a 3-2 lead at 11:34 of the second, but Florida issued a successful coach’s challenge, keeping the game even.
Milano has had two goals taken off the board as a result of coach’s challenges.
Mantha’s second of the night came late in the middle period, enabling the Caps to take a 3-2 lead to the third. McMichael forced a turnover along the half wall in Washington ice, springing himself and Mantha on a 2-on-1 rush. McMichael fed Mantha as the latter approached the net, and Mantha quickly went backhand to forehand and went back against the grain with a quick shot to the left side of the net at 15:51.
“Mo beat out that backchecker,” says McMichael of the goal that restored the Caps’ lead. “I just had to slide it over to him, and he had a good finish.”
The Caps couldn’t convert on a third-period power play, and they needed a late save from Kuemper on Florida’s Eetu Luostarinen to get the game to overtime, where Reinhart was able the wrangle the extra point for his side, Florida’s second consecutive overtime victory; they downed Columbus 5-4 in the extra session on Monday.
“It was good,” says Panthers’ coach Paul Maurice. “Two completely different games; this one was a bit of a slog, I thought. Our start was not as good as theirs, our last 10 [minutes] of the first was really good, I liked that.
“The first [Caps’ goal] was a bad break, but you recover from it. Then you give a shorty against; that took us a while to recover from. The Rodrigues goal was clearly incredibly important.”
