A day after signing a two-year contract extension, Uvis Balinskis scored his second goal in as many nights – and the first power-play goal of his NHL career – to snap a 2-2 tie late in the second period and lift the Florida Panthers to a 3-2 lead they would not relinquish. The Cats rebounded from a bad beat in Raleigh on Friday night with a 5-2 win over Washington on Saturday at Capital One Arena. The final two Florida tallies were scored into an empty net, sparing the Caps a fourth straight 3-2 outcome.
Jakob Chychrun scored both Washington goals in a losing effort.
“I think we have good moments through the game where we’re doing things correctly,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery, “We’re on our toes, we’re doing a lot of the things that we talk about, what our identity looks like.
“And then I would say there’s times where we get away from it, whether it’s missed coverage, puck play, lack of execution. Just the ability to sustain it and do it for 60 minutes is a challenge.”
For the third time in as many games on the homestand, the Caps’ start to the game was slow and lackluster, but some of that had to do with Florida coming out like gangbusters.
The Caps were thumped in terms of possession in the first period. Coming in off a 9-1 beatdown at the hands of the Hurricanes in Carolina a night earlier, you knew the proud two-time defending champion Panthers would be determined to bounce back.
In the first period of Saturday’s game, Washington’s infrequent offensive zone forays were too often brief. The Caps could make a play to enter Florida ice, but they were rarely able to make a second play that would result in a shot or a scoring chance.
In the backside of the opening period, on one of those infrequent entries to Florida ice, the Caps did make a second play, and the result was Connor McMichael putting the puck behind Florida goaltender Daniil Tarasov. But even those of us sitting way up high in the press box – with no one behind us – could see without the benefit of replay that Aliaksei Protas was fully into Florida ice before the puck.
The Panthers issued a successful coach’s challenge to keep the game scoreless – and to keep the shot total at 10-1 in Florida’s favor – at 12:43 of the first.
Less than a minute later, it was the Panthers that jumped in front. While the Caps were changing up their forward trio, Sam Bennett was first to the puck on the forecheck. He curled out from behind the net and fired from in tight, a shot that Logan Thompson stopped. But A.J. Greer found and buried the rebound at 13:23.
In a first period played entirely at 5-on-5, the Caps were outshot 14-4 and out-attempted 28-13. They had a 2-on-1 rush early in the frame and another late, and neither produced a shot on goal. Of the 17 first-period face-offs, only three took place in the Florida end.
“Of late, for sure,” says Chychrun of his team’s starts lacking. “It seems like our late periods are always our better ones. We’ve got to find ways to not put ourselves in a hole and have to fight to get out of it.”
The Caps came out with more verve in the second, and they played their brand of hockey for more of the 20 minutes, particularly in the offensive zone. And when the two sides started playing 4-on-4 hockey in the second minute of the second period, the Caps connected to square the score.
After losing the handle at the Florida line, the Caps executed a neutral zone regroup. Chychrun and Aliaksei Protas worked a give-and-go, and the former fired home a shot from the left dot at 2:04 of the second, tying it at 1-1.
Exactly eight minutes later, Chychrun netted his second of the night, firing a wrist shot through a line of traffic from center point to lift Washington to a 2-1 lead at 10:04.
The lead was short-lived; Sam Bennett knotted the score at 2-2 at 11:40, finding and burying the rebound of a Carter Verhaeghe point shot that was blocked in front.
On a power play minutes later, the Cats regained the lead when Balinskis scored his second goal in as many nights – and third of the season – on a point shot at 15:16. The goal was the first extra-man tally of Balinskis’ NHL career, and it came in his 140th career game.
In the first minute of the third period, the Caps had a chance to pull even on what would be their only man advantage opportunity of the night. Washington put a couple of shots on Tarasov, had some zone time and some retrievals, but it couldn’t cobble together the equalizer.
“I think every single game special teams has an opportunity to play a part,” says Caps center Nic Dowd. “Some games, like a couple games ago, we had guys that were up into the seven, eight, nine minutes of penalty kill [ice time], right? So you're going to have those games, where you're going to have to kill off a ton.
“And then tonight, you're going to have games where we kill off, what did we have two maybe, and we give up one, and that's the difference in the game.”
And unfortunately for the Capitals, their third period more closely resembled their first than their second period performance. They were also victimized by a bit of eye-raising officiating midway through the period when Ethen Frank tore in on the forecheck while being obviously bear-hugged from behind by Florida’s Mackie Samoskevich. As the two turned toward the net to follow the play, Frank was whistled for roughing on what should have been a “take ‘em both” 4-on-4 sequence. The Caps killed off the penalty without incident, but it was another two minutes gone by without being able to threaten for a tying tally.
By the time the Caps put their first shot on net of the third period at 5-on-5 on Tarasov, less than eight minutes remained in the game.
Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe, respectively, scored the late empty-net goals that accounted for the 5-2 final. A night after absorbing a 9-1 thumping at the hands of the Hurricanes in Carolina, the Panthers got back on the beam.
“It’s a hard thing we went through for 48 hours,” says Florida coach Paul Maurice. “And back-to-backs are not easy in this League, and playing a team that’s fighting for their playoff lives, you have to get on top of them really hard. We had a very difficult night emotionally, and they handled it.
“We came out right, with the strong first period that we had and then just a battle straight through, the rest of the game. I just wanted them to recognize that what they did tonight wasn’t easy, and they should enjoy it. They played well and they played hard in a tough situation.”
Saturday’s setback left the Caps with one win to show for a three-game homestand which came right in front of one of their longest road trips in several seasons, a six-game journey of a dozen days that starts Monday afternoon in Denver.
