The Washington Capitals are back on the ice and we don’t have an Alex Ovechkin goalless streak to overly-focus on. Tonight the Capitals will take on the Tampa Bay Lightning who are nearly unbeatable at home and well under .500 away from Amalie Arena.
Connor McMichael is back in the lineup and Charlie Lindgren is starting.
Tonight’s game is on Monumental Sports Network. Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin have the call. Puck drop is a little after 7:00 pm.
Lines
Alex Alexeyev and Matthew Phillips are the Capitals scratches.
Lineys!#CapsBolts | @JackDaniels_US pic.twitter.com/ZQS5QxWNoQ
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 23, 2023
Tunnel weirdness
The holiday spirit is off the charts#ALLCAPS | @CaesarsSports pic.twitter.com/OfqVdpPp2A
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 23, 2023
1st Period
Charlie Lindgren will oppose Andrei Vasilevskiy in net. Ovechkin-Strome-Wilson and Sandin-van Riemsdyk get the start.
🚨 1-0 Bolts. Luke Glendening with the deflection in front of the net after Charlie Lindgren is waaaaay to lackadaisical with a dump in and turns it over.
Capitals get their first power play of the game after Steven Stamkos gets whistled for interference on Dylan Strome. They did nothing with it.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, in front of the net, took a shot off the back of the left foot/achilles. Back at the bench, he’s grimacing.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel takes a penalty. Caps back to the kill.
The Capitals outshot the Lightning 13-11 and 20-15 in 5v5 shot attempts.
2nd Period
Puck is dropped.
A Tom Wilson shot hits crossbar and goes out of play 17 seconds into the period.
🚨 1-1 tie. Anthony Mantha deflects a Nick Jensen shot into the net. That’s his 10th of the year. What a season, young man! Mantha now has three goals in his last two games and 11 points (7g, 4a) in his last 13 games.
make sure you stock up on hot hands this winter pic.twitter.com/IlgtN5LosI
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 24, 2023
Nick Jensen fakes a shot and then beats Vasilevskiy to the far corner at the 8:39 mark, but the Lightning are challenging for offside. NO GOAL. Joel Edmundson lobbed the puck over a diving Lightning defender at the blue line, but he skated into the zone before the puck entered.
Alex Ovechkin stopped by Vasilevskiy on a rebound right in front of the net. He muffed the shot and it went into the goalie’s gut.
One of the linesman sustained an injury and went down to the locker room.
3rd Period
Puck is dropped.
Late in the period NAK goes off injured after a taking a big hit.
This game has been point shot after point shot after point shot after point shot. A very tight-checking not fun game.
Overtime
Charlie Lindgren appeared to jam his right arm into the post as he dove to cover the other side of the net in the waning seconds of overtime. He stays in for the shootout.
Shootout
Kuznetsov beats Vasilevskiy on the Slownetsov move off the post and in. 1-0 Caps.
Steven Stamkos goes to his backhand and is stopped by Lindgren.
Dylan Strome shoots it right into Vasilevskiy.
Brayden Point beats Lindgren from the crease on a wrist shot. 1-1.
Alex Ovechkin stopped on his forehand.
Nikita Kucherov stopped by Lindgren as he skates across the circles.
Connor McMichael gets his first shootout attempt and tries a wrist shot in between the circles, shooting across his body and misses the net.
Victor Hedman beats Lindgren clean. Lightning win.
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