After a tough win against Jersey the other night the Caps headed down to the sunshine of Tampa Bay to face the Lightning who were 7 points ahead of the Caps in the Eastern Conference standings.
The boys in white got on the board first quickly after puck drop with some nifty moves from Nicolas Aube-Kubel as he walked through the Bolts d-man who ripped it top shelf for his 6th goal of the season and added a steezy celly to the goal.
Then red hot McMichael got on the board with a feed from Edmundson to make it 2-0 in favor of the Caps going into the 2nd period.
Tampa finally got on the board in the second off some nice tic tac toe passing which just missed Strome’s stick on the cross ice pass which would have prevented the goal scoring chance.
Then Anthony Mantha answered the Bolts goal with one of his own on a 3 on 1 rush and some beautiful sauce by Oshie who fed Mantha for the one timer goal to put the Caps up by 2. Strome notched his 19th assist of the season on Mantha’s goal which extends his point streak to 3 games and now has 40 points in 55 games. Capitals go into the 3rd up 3-1.
The Bolts Paul of some lazy Capitals transition defense scored and shrunk the lead down to 1 in the 3rd.
The Bolts then tied the game up off another transition rush and bad lazy pass from the boards into a turnover in front of the net and a easy goal for Tyler Motte.
Then the Sandman put the Bolts to sleep with the eventual GWG with a great feed from behind the net to a wide open Rasmus Sandin who ripped an absolute piss missile to beat Vasilevskiy.
Then Connor McMichael notched his second goal of the game on the empty netter of the pass from Ovi and achieving back to back multi-goal games. That assist extends his point streak to 10 games and now has 22 points in 19 games.
Caps win 5-3!
This was on the very few games this season where the boys came to play in the 1st with a great forecheck and for once we looked faster than the opponent.
Our defense was shaky at times, especially on the goals given up but overall they played good enough to secure the victory.
The key player of the game had to be Tom Wilson he was running around like a bully hitting anything that moved and Tampa had no answer for him on their bench to stop him. Hoping his physicality trickles down to some of the other guys we need some more nasty on this team.
In games past when we give up a couple goal lead it usually has ended in a regulation or overtime loss, but this was not the case last night the boys showed some resilience and finished the game.
Lindgren was solid again making 29 stops and is now 3-2 in February with a 2.87 goals against average with a .910 saver percentage. I am very curious if the Caps try to hear offers for Lindy but only sell him if the right offer comes across the table.
With the win the Caps now sit at 60 points and are just 5 points back of the Lightning for the second wild card spot with 3 games in hand. Personally, I don’t think we should even thinking about being buyers at the deadline like not even a 1%, would sell and used guys like Mantha and maybe some others to get some draft picks.
The Capitals will stay in the sunshine state to take on the dirtbag Panther’s who definitely will not put up with Wilson crushing everyone. So expect a dirty and gritty type fight on Saturday.
The Morning Skate 