Capitals strike for five goals against Lightning and dominate

The Washington Capitals played one of their worst games of the season in a Wednesday night loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Last night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they played one of their best.

At 10:32 of the first period, Anthony Mantha struck from the side of the net off a great feed from Lars Eller for his fifth goal of the season.

1-0 was the score after one with the Bolts leading in shots 9-7.

At 7:03 in the second period the Caps doubled their lead on a breakaway from Sonny Milano for his first goal as a Cap. The play was set up on a long feed from John Carlson.

Aliaksei Protas made it 3-0 at 14:25 set up by Nick Jensen and Martin Fehervary for his third goal of the season. He followed off a deflection and a rebound off the pads of Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.

3-0 was the score after two periods with shots even at 11 apiece in the second period.

Conor Sheary made it 4-0 at 4:53 in the third for his fifth goal of the season. That play was set up by Mantha and Milano and that too was a breakaway.

The Lightning got on the board with a goal from Nick Perbix at 12:09.

Milano made it 5-1 which would turn out to be the final at 17:45 on a tic tac toe goal with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin with the helpers.

John Carlson told the media after the game:

“If we play the game like how we want to and how we’re capable of, we’ll win a lot of games. Doesn’t matter how many guys are out, how many guys are in, who it is and who we’re playing. And I think that’s what you see.”

Darcy Kuemper was outstanding with 28 saves. The Caps were outshot 9-6 in the third period and 29-24 overall but Kuemper and the defense stood tall against a high flying Bolts offense.

The Capitals and Lightning meet again on Sunday night at 7 p.m. this time in Tampa Bay.