This is your place to check for updates and comment along with the Washington Capitals vs. Florida Panthers game on April 8, 2023.

The Washington Capitals enter tonight’s game against the Florida Panthers and it’s big for several reverse reasons.

With a win, the Capitals would help their biggest rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in their attempt to make the postseason, which is super weird. With a loss, the Caps will continue to move down the standings, which would be good. Florida is playing for their playoff lives, so expect them to come out hot.

Alex Ovechkin will not play tonight due to injury while Peter Laviolette is giving Charlie Lindgren a start.

Tonight’s game is on NBC Sports Washington and puck drop is a little after 7 pm.

Lines

Capitals’ lines for tonight’s game against the Panthers:

Sheary-Strome-Wilson
Rotating LW-Backstrom-Protas
Milano-Kuznetsov-Smith
Malenstyn-Dowd-NAK

Fehervary-Carlson
Sandin-Jensen
Alexeyev-Irwin

Lindgren (vs. Lyon)

Out: Ovechkin, Oshie, TvR, Mantha

Caps dressing 17 skaters.

— Matt Weyrich (@ByMattWeyrich) April 8, 2023

1st Period

Malenstyn-Dowd-NAK and Fehervary-Carlson get the start. Lindgren is opposing Alex Lyon in net.

Matthew Tkachuk deflects the puck in around crossbar level, but upon a league initiated review, it’s ruled a high stick. The game remains 0-0. The review took about 5 minutes.

The Panthers outshot the Capitals 10-7 and out-attempted them at 5v5, 19-13. The Panthers hold the expected goals edge 1.15 to 0.47.

2nd Period

Sam Reinhart deflects a puck home in front of the net, but it was again with a high stick. Confirmed by replay.

🚨 1-0 Caps. Dylan Strome scores on a loose puck in front of the net. It’s Strome’s 21st of the season. Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas get the assists.

🚨 1-1 tie. Carter Verhaeghe ties it up.

🚨 2-1 Panthers. A layup for Aaron Ekblad after a rebound bounces out to him from Charlie Lindgren at the left circle.

🚨 2-2 tie. Tom Wilson ties it up top corner after a great pass by Conor Sheary.

The Capitals now lead in shots on goal 21-19. The Panthers continue to lead in 5v5 shot attempts 33-28. The Capitals are now leading in expected goals 2.35 to 2.25.

Hendrix Lapierre has a hat trick in Hershey.

3rd Period

🚨 3-2 Panthers. Matthew Tkachuk intercepts a clearing attempt by Charlie Lindgren up the wall. He fires a shot and it goes in with exactly one minute left. Barkov appeared to get a stick on it.

🚨 4-2 Panthers. Sam Rinehart empty-net goal.

The Panthers outshot the Capitals 37-24 in the game. Florida is back in a wild card spot with the win.

Comment below. Refresh this article throughout the night as we’ll be updating it live.