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Panthers pull away from Caps and earn two very key playoff race points: Panthers beat Caps 6-3

By Chris Cerullo

 4 Comments

February 16, 2023 9:38 pm

The Washington Capitals hosted the Florida Panthers on Thursday night in an incredibly important game when it comes to figuring out the Eastern Conference playoff picture. The winner of the game would situate themselves in a much better position for the second Wild Card spot.

Gustav Forsling snapped the Panthers into a lead halfway through the first. Marc Staal doubled the Florida lead with a point drive and Colin White made it 3-0 with a nice backhand move.

Dylan Strome got the Caps on the board with a nifty tip-in late in the second. Aleksander Barkov killed any hope that goal gave the Caps with one of his own right after. Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov with late power play markers. Anton Lundell and Sam Reinhart empty netters.

Panthers beat Caps 6-3.

  • A grand total of six shots in the first period from the Capitals. That’s how they came out of the gate in their most important game of the season up until this point. They left the period down a goal which is a trend of late.
  • The power play is still utterly shambolic. They had two tries within the first twenty minutes and didn’t record a single shot on either opportunity. The fact that they have been so obviously bad with a man advantage this season and really nothing has been done or tried to solve that issue is inexplicable to me. Missing John Carlson for a long stretch and Alex Ovechkin recently has definitely played a part but it was bad with them on the ice too.
  • Ian wrote a really cool thing on the ten-year anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteor and I think you should read it. It’s one of the wildest moments in RMNB history.

  • The Caps were at least more active in the second period but it didn’t mean they were really any better. They left the second frame down 4-1 and with their season falling apart. Not fun to watch.
  • Marc Staal scored Florida’s second goal. He came into the night having played 57 games this season and not scoring in a single one. That sums up the Caps of late pretty well.
  • TJ Oshie was incredibly angry tonight. I would think that he is very tired of losing hockey games. Matthew Tkachuk is also just one of the most annoying players in the entire league and that’s before he opens his mouth so I can kinda understand why Osh was so peeved.
  • The Capitals honored Mikhail Ovechkin with a moment of silence and a really moving and sweet tribute video before the game. RIP Papa Ovechkin.

  • It took the Caps almost ten minutes to record their first shot in the third period and it came right as another shotless power play ended. They got it going after that but it was just too little, too late. Sergei Bobrovsky was very, very good.
  • This one is from Joe B on the broadcast. That third period was just the Caps’ second period with more than one goal in their last 27 periods.
  • Dylan McIlrath made his Caps debut straight from Hershey in this pivotal game and was on the ice for multiple goals against.

Well, the next time the Caps take the ice they’ll be outdoors in North Carolina for the 2023 Stadium Series game against the Carolina Hurricanes. At least that will be fun.

Headline photo courtesy of kurly

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