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What a game: Lightning beat Caps 6-3

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The Washington Capitals got some Florida sun before heading to an arena that they have very recent and fond memories of. The current best team on the planet, the Tampa Bay Lightning were looking to finally enact some revenge on Washington this season after that past playoff battle.

Tyler Johnson opened scoring on the evening and Alex Killorn doubled up that early lead with a strange marker that bounced off of Dmitry Orlov. John Carlson cut the lead in half, but Killorn made that short lived with his second on the night.

Alex Ovechkin restored Capitals hopes with a power play goal in the second. Erik Cernak opened the third with an early insurance goal. Ovi got on the board again in the third. Lightning with two empty netters.

Lightning beat Caps 6-3.

  • The Caps were actually matching the Lightning up to the point when John Carlson struck to make this a 2-1 hockey game in the first. From then on though…woof. Tampa took that period over and then some. A flashy glove save on Ovechkin from Andrei Vasilevskiy was really the only thing the Caps got in their direction after their goal.
  • I hate these alternate jerseys the Lightning have. For one, it looks like the designer only got halfway done with them and for two, I feel like all black jerseys are a little unfair to opposing teams when it comes to seeing the puck. Both of those are probably just me being weird per usual though.
  • By the way, who the hell was in charge of scheduling the Caps and Lightning playing all three of their games this season within the final ten games of the season? A Pens fan?
  • Y’all the Lightning are for real. Hey, at least the Islanders and Pens both lost today too?
  • One play that we should highlight from the first came from Nick Jensen. Yes, Jensen got bullied on the third Lightning goal, but this is a textbook example of the value he brings to the Caps. Quick feet, solid hands, up the ice by himself.

  • The Caps utterly dominated the Lightning in the second period. At five-on-five they out-attempted them 18 to 5, out-shot them 10 to 4, out-scoring chanced them 6 to 1, and out-high danger chanced them 2 to 0.
  • I asked on the RMNB twitter account for an Alex Ovechkin power play goal. We received one only seconds later. What a guy. That’s Ovi’s league leading 47th goal of the season and his 246th career power play goal (tied with Phil Esposito for fifth most all time). Ovi later would get his 48th of the campaign in the third.
  • How do the Lightning afford all of these guys going forward? Their GM is in for some balance beam financing in the very near future.
  • Riley Barber scored two goals for the Hershey Bears tonight, giving him 31 tallies on the season. He now leads the entirety of the AHL in goal scoring. I’ve been a big fan of his since he was drafted by the Caps in the sixth round in 2012. He is an unrestricted free agent after this season and is deserving of an NHL look next season, whether that comes on the Caps or not.

  • Look, this is a loss, but still an encouraging one in my eyes. A few bounces here and there go another way and the Caps probably send this to overtime. They went toe to toe with this insane team for the majority of this game and even took it to them pretty hard for an entire period. I’m really, really freakin’ happy with this effort.
  • The Bolts really seem to enjoy flailing to the ice. All I will say on that matter.
  • Braden Holtby was out of his mind good for parts of this game. He’ll probably want the Cernak goal back, but man otherwise he was stellar.
  • What a magical play late from Ovi to try and get the tying goal, but Jakub Vrana unfortunately clipped the post with his shot.

Next up for the Caps is a date with the Devils at Prudential Center. The Caps beat up on a very banged up Devils team recently and will look to repeat that success on Tuesday.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Lightning

Headline photo: Scott Audette

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