The Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers faced off on Monday in a penalty-fueled affair. Less than 40 minutes of the game came at five-on-five, with the two teams combining for 11 penalties on the night.
Some of those calls may have come on legitimate infractions, but officials also sent several players to the box on…let’s call it shakier ground. Both sides expressed their displeasure with individual penalties throughout the night, but the two most dramatic calls came in the third period, with Caps captain Alex Ovechkin performing the role of both offender and offendee.
Early in the period, Ovechkin took an interference call against Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad: Ovechkin hit Ekblad’s chest with his stick, and Ekblad tumbled to the ice.
Both Ovechkin and head coach Spencer Carbery protested the call, motioning to officials that Ekblad’s fall was a dive, but the call stood. Panthers star Brad Marchand would strike just a second after Ovechkin’s penalty expired, batting the puck out of the air for a game-tying goal.
Less than a minute later, Ovechkin pulled off a caper of his own to get the Capitals the man advantage. Ovechkin appeared to have thrown himself to the ice at the Panthers’ netfront, but the flop successfully drew a tripping call on Gustav Forsling.
“Not a great look for the Great 8,” wrote Panthers reporter Jameson Olive. “Comical flop, but the refs take the bait.”
Florida’s fans were (understandably) not too happy about the call.
While the two teams ended the night with 12 penalty minutes each, the special teams-heavy game proved difficult for the Capitals, who rank 30th in the NHL in power-play percentage (15.2%) and 26th in penalty-kill percentage (76.6%).
“Honestly, I would have loved to just play five-on-five the whole game,” Tom Wilson said with a chuckle postgame. “It would have been a lot better that way.”
Carbery, too, wasn’t thrilled with the number of calls on the night, but he didn’t see it as an excuse for the group’s five-on-five play.
“Any time that we can keep a game five-on-five, that plays to our favor, and stay off of special teams,” he said. “The amount of penalties in the game, I wasn’t a huge fan of, but once a few ticky-tacky (plays) get called, then you know it’s going back the other way…Do I think it affected our ability to play [better at] five-on-five tonight? No, I wouldn’t attribute it to that. I just think we had to do a little bit more to work through the strengths of their team defensively.”
The Capitals will finish out their 2025 calendar with a New Year’s Eve matinee against the New York Rangers at Capital One Arena.
