When the Washington Capitals take on the Tampa Bay Lightning you either get a lot of offense or killer goaltending from Andrei Vasilevskiy. No in between and today it was Vasilievskiy who stole the show at Capital One Arena as the Bolts took the third game of the regular season series over the Caps by a final of 3-1.
Three losses in a row
Mitchell Chaffee struck first at 17:11 for his 11th goal of the season on the power play. Tampa had the edge in shots 10-5 in the first period. The Caps had the edge in shots 8-6 in the second but couldn't score. In the third the Caps outshot the Lightning 9-3 to lead in shots 22-19 overall.
In the second period nobody scored. At 6:08 in the third Gage Goncalves doubled the Lightning lead. At 16:01, Alex Ovechkin tried to ignite a comeback with his 31st goal of the season. It was assisted by none other than birthday boy Matt Roy for his 18th of the season.
At 19:01 the Bolts answered with an empty net goal from Brandon Hagel and that would be all they needed as they came away with a 3-1 win. The Caps had the edge in face off percentage 62.2 percent to 37.8 percent. Washington went 0 for 3 on the power play while the Bolts went one for three.
The Lightning had 19 blocked shots compared to the Capitals seven. Washington had 16 giveaways while the Lightning had 11. Washington had five takeaways while Tampa Bay had four.
For Ovechkin it was the 884th goal of his storied career putting him 10 away from tying and 11 away from passing Wayne Gretzky for the most NHL goals of all time. It spoiled Vasilevskiy's shutout bid and gave Ovechkin the third star of the game when all was said and done.
"You can call it a skid if you want," said Tom Wilson after the game. "It's three games, we don't like it but we've had a consistent year. There's going to be ups and downs. We're not panicking right now. We love the group in here. We've just got to find a way to get back on track. We're doing good things. Sometimes you lose a few in a row and you got to correct those as quick as possible."
Next up for the Caps is a home game on Monday March 3 at 6:30 p.m. against the Calgary Flames. You can catch the game on Monumental Sports Network as well as 106.7 The Fan and Caps Radio 24/7.