The Capitals took on Tampa Bay in an early Saturday tilt, but the lack of offense turned out to be the factor in the 3-1 loss. This is now the Capital’s third loss in a row and their largest losing streak this season.
Jakob Chychrun looked to have the Caps on the board first but the goal was overturned due to the Caps playing the puck with a high stick well before the goal. Soon after the Bolts Mitchell Chaffee got a juicy rebound on the power play which found the back the of the net, 1-0 Bolts.
The second saw no goals even though the Caps won the puck possession time.
Early in the third the Bolts got on the board again via Jonas Goncalves who whipped a wrister to the well clogged front which screened Logan Thompson, 2-0 Bolts.
With 4 minutes remaining the in the game Alex Ovechkin was able to change the goose egg to a 1 off a Roy misplay with the puck and in between the two circles Ovi was able to corral the puck and make a quick deke then rifle the puck past the Bolt’s goalie to get on the board, 2-1 bad guys.
https://twitter.com/Capitals/status/1895927827775594825
This was his 31st goal of the season and the 884th of his career to cut the deficit to 2-1. Ovechkin is 11 goals shy of passing Wayne Gretzky (894g) for the most goals in NHL history.
Ovi is two points shy of becoming the 11th player in NHL history to reach the 1,600-point mark and seventh to do so with a single franchise.
The Bolts got the empty netter to make the final 3-1.
The Caps won the majority of the puck control throughout the whole game, but the Lightning defense brought their A game and shut down the Caps attack.
During this losing streak the Caps are averaging 1.7 goals per game, just after scoring 15 goals in back to back games. Guess we should have saved some of those for these past three games.
As for changes I would like to see more of Vrana rather than Mangiapane because he provides nothing for us offensively.
The Capitals next game is Monday against the Senators.
The Morning Skate 