The Washington Capitals needed a win badly after two straight embarrassing losses. They got it in a big way against the back to back defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts fought all the way till the end but Ilya Samsonov made some key saves to preserve the 4-3 win.
The Caps struck first on the Bolts with Martin Fehervary crashing the net for his sixth goal of the season at 5:10. The assists came from John Carlson and Conor Sheary. The Caps would later go to the power play with a delay of game penalty on the Lightning. Carlson would double the lead with a power play goal at 7:38 with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom providing the helpers.
Nikita Kucherov got the Bolts on the board at 8:41. The Caps answered at 15:10 from none other than Alex Ovechkin. This wasn’t your typical Ovechkin from the office goal. This was a shot to the net coming down the ice that he followed and finished off his own rebound. It was his 43rd of the season and 1,400th point of his career. He’s the 21st player in NHL history to reach that feat. Carlson and Kuznetsov had the helpers.
Nicholas Paul scored at 16:31 to make it a one goal deficit at 3-2. That was the score after one with the Caps leading in shots 13-11.
In the second the Caps got another power play opportunity when Brayden Point was called for slashing Johan Larsson. Carlson would add his second goal of the night at 16:35 on a snapshot up the middle for his 13th of the season. T.J. Oshie and Ovechkin had the assists.
4-2 was the score after two periods. The Lightning led in shots 9-6 in the second period.
At 17:10 in the third period Ross Colton scored on the power play to make it a one goal game. Other than that setback, Samsonov made the saves he needed to in the third period to preserve the win. The Caps led in shots 9-8 in the third period and shots were even at 28 overall. Samsonov finished with 25 saves.
Kuznetsov spoke to the media after the game:
"“That was a huge two points for us. We played D pretty good sometimes, sometimes not, but at the end of the day we play for each other a lot today so that was a fun game to watch and play.”"
The Caps will play a back to back this weekend. First up is the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday afternoon and the Boston Bruins on Sunday.