Cats Clip Caps, 4-2

Seeking to shake off a five-game winless streak on Saturday night against the visiting Florida Panthers, the Caps played hard and played well for most of the night. But at night's end, they found themselves again on the wrong side of a 4-2 decision.

Matthew Tkachuk's 40th goal of the season came with exactly a minute left in regulation, snapping a 2-2 tie and spoiling a sublime third-period performance by Caps' goalie Charlie Lindgren, who deserved a better fate. Before Tkachuk's shot hit a body in front and deflected in, Lindgren stopped all 16 shots the Panthers sent his way in the third, including seven of them while Florida was on the power play.
"Losing like that, it's beyond disappointing to be quite honest with you," says Lindgren. "It's a 2-2 hockey game with a minute left, and it was a nothing dump-in. I went out and played the puck, and if I get that up, he's not able to pick that up clean and shoot it towards the net. So yeah, it's beyond frustrating and disappointing the way that one ended."
Lindgren finished the night with 33 saves, nearly half of them in the third. He stopped 13 of 14 Florida shots on the power play in Saturday's game.
With only home games against playoff-bound Toronto and Carolina remaining on their schedule, the desperate Panthers needed two points any way they could get them on Saturday, especially after the Penguins leapfrogged them in the standings with a victory in Detroit earlier in the day.
Twice in Saturday's game, the Panthers had deflected goals disallowed because the stick of the deflector was adjudged to be above the crossbar at the point of contact. Tkachuk had a goal called back in that fashion with 3:32 left in the first and Sam Reinhart had the same thing happen to him at 2:28 of the second, both instances coming while the game was still scoreless.
For the second time in as many games, Dylan Strome staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead, doing so at 8:51 of the second when he adeptly worked his way through the middle of the ice and into Florida territory with the puck, then shelved a second try opportunity after taking a net front feed from Tom Wilson.
Florida tied the game just over two minutes later, and the goal was not without controversy. Washington was called for intentional offside, a call that is made far more rarely than it could be League wide. Florida's Sasha Barkov won the ensuing draw in Washington ice cleanly from Nic Dowd, and then Caps killer Carter Verhaeghe scored on a one-timer from the right half wall, four seconds after the drop. Dowd argued vehemently, but to no avail.
"Both of those [calls] didn't go our way," says Caps' coach Peter Laviolette, referring to the offside and the face-off drop. "So they threw it down in our end for the intentional [offside] call, and then the face-off didn't go our way, either."
Just under three minutes later, the Panthers took their first lead of the night on a power play, with Wilson in the box for a phantom hi-sticking call on Anton Lundell. Ekblad put back the rebound of a Reinhart shot from the slot, putting Florida up 2-1 at 13:47.
A fired-up Wilson tied the game with just under four minutes remaining in the second, a well-executed play on which Washington went 200 feet in a matter of seconds with four touches. John Carlson broke it out from below the goal line, feeding Evgeny Kuznetsov in neutral ice. Kuznetsov went cross-ice for Conor Sheary, but the pass didn't click, and Sheary chased it to the half wall in Florida ice while Wilson made a beeline for the net. Sheary hit him perfectly, and Wilson beat Alex Lyon to square the score at 2-2 heading to the third.
"I just let [Sheary] know I was with him early," says Wilson. "He kind of missed the pass, so I think he knew I was going to the net, and he made a good play just to get it around the [Florida defender]."
Early in the third, more controversy ensued after Wilson put a hit on Florida's Marc Staal in front of the Panthers' bench and then went for a change. From the Florida bench, Cats' winger Givani Smith shoved Wilson, and the big Washington winger shoved him back. Both players were given roughing minors, but the Caps believed Smith should have been penalized more severely, given that he wasn't even on the ice.
"I don't know what the rule is," says Wilson. "I thought if you get punched from off the ice, it's probably a game misconduct."
Wilson was also still understandably sour over events from Montreal on Thursday when he incurred a fighting major plus an instigator minor and a 10-minute misconduct for fighting the Habs' Michael Pezzetta, who clearly agreed to the bout.
"Honestly, I don't know what's going on rules wise," says Wilson. "The other night, I ask a guy to fight. I square up, and I get 17 minutes. I get punched on the bench on the way to a line change, and we kill three consecutive penalties, so it's tough.
"You try and go out there and work as hard as you can and take pride in your game. But things happen, and it kind of had that playoff feel where it was getting chippy, and there were some big hits and stuff. But I'm just trying to put my head down and work."
And work he did; Wilson seemingly had an impact every time he stepped onto the ice tonight. He finished with a goal and an assist, four shots, four hits and four blocked shots, logging 19:28 in ice time. His goal was his 10th of the season, and he has only played 30 games.
In the third, the Panthers benefited from a pair of power plays but still couldn't manufacture the go-ahead goal. Lindgren made an excellent stop on a Colin White redirection early in the third, then denied a Verhaeghe backhander from point blank range just ahead of the midpoint of the final frame.
On the second Florida power play of the period, Lindgren shrugged away a Barkov shot with his right shoulder.
But the Panthers persevered, climbing back into the first wild card spot in the East when Tkachuk and Reinhart - the two Panthers who had goals called back early in the game - scored in the final minute, Reinhart's coming with the Washington net vacant to account for the 4- 2 final.
"It was a tight-checking game; it was a grinder," says Cats coach Paul Maurice of Florida's sixth straight victory. "[The Caps] checked hard tonight, and most of the things that we were frustrated with were some of the things that we did with the puck.
"But it's good because the pressure is building in our room as that game goes on. You're tied going into the third, so you're watching for the reaction to that pressure, and we were really good in the third. That was our best by far. We pushed hard.
"I don't know if it's karma or not, but the two goals that don't go for you - the first was a goal on the ice and it's so close you think you've got a chance. But I'm not going to fight over it. The second was no goal on the ice, it's no goal. We hit a bunch of [posts]. But they stayed with it."
There are no moral victories for the Caps at this stage of this season, but they turned in a much more representative effort tonight than in a 6-2 loss to the Canadiens in Montreal on Thursday.
"I thought our guys played hard," says Laviolette. "We can hate the outcome and we can hate the end, and that sums up the night. When we left Montreal, I was pretty honest about what I thought needed to be more. And I thought there was more tonight."