The Washington Capitals lost their third straight after Thursday night’s mellow performance in Tampa. It was never close.

Alex Killorn tapped in a point shot (but not a Point shot) on the power play to open scoring. With a faceoff win, Steven Stamkos scored with three seconds left in the first period to give the home team a 2-0 lead. Craig Smith scored from below the goal line, but in the third Pat Maroon crashed the net twice to seal the deal, and then Cernak added another seal on top of that first seal, you know, just in case, with an empty-netter.

Caps lose 5-1.

• TJ Oshie suffered some kind of upper-body injury in the first period and did not return for the second. I didn’t see him take any big hits, but I see on the play-by-play that he took one from Darren Raddysh with four minutes left in the period. He kept playing up ’til the very end, so it’s a bit of a mystery. Oshie’s already missed extended time on two occasions this season.
• It’s a personal aspiration of mine to never learn anything about Craig Smith, as we all know he’ll be gone come the offseason. That said, this mystery man scored a nifty goal from below the goal line, beating Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy for the first and only time of the night.
• For a second consecutive night, Alex Ovechkin struggled to get a lot of looks on offense. His best game halfway into the third period and was easily turned away by Vas.
• Tom Wilson took a beautiful cross-ice pass from Nicklas Backstrom that should have resulted in a goal on the rebound – but the net was off its moorings. Great play, bad luck, right call.
• I’m glad I got to praise Nicklas Backstrom’s pass because otherwise he had a very bad night. He lost the faceoff before the Stamkos goal, he got busted for a hold when he got outpaced, and he barely sniffed the offensive zone. I’m worried about him. There’s a universe that exists within the realm of possibility where Backstrom doesn’t come back next year. There’s a universe that exists within the realm of possibility where tonight – Thursday, March 30, 2023 – was the last time Backstrom and Oshie played together on the Capitals.
• Holy hell, that’s bleak. I’m sure Oshie’s just day-to-day, and Backstrom will get his legs back in the offseason.
• Peter Laviolette chose goalie Darcy Kuemper to play in both nights of these back-to-back games. I think that’s summary evidence that Laviolette simply does not like backup goalie Charlie Lindgren, who admittedly is having a rough season. Kuemper did as expected against a potent Lightning offense.

Three-piece alert #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/wyNXESGF9X

— good tweet pete 🌮 (@peterhassett) March 30, 2023

The Capitals got caved in. It was never close. And now they have lost three in a row. They’ve lost their last four road games. They’ve got three wins in their last ten games, and those three were against the Hawks, Sabres, and Islanders. I’m starting to worry they might not be contenders this year after all.

Headline photo: @HockeyEnjoyer