Photo: John McCreary/NHLI via Getty Images
The Washington Capitals fell to the Florida Panthers by a score of 4-2 Saturday night at Capital One Arena. The loss dropped the Capitals’ record to 34-36-9 and 77 points on the season. Goaltender Charlie Lindgren made 33 saves in the loss.
Lines & Pairs
Conor Sheary — Dylan Strome — Tom Wilson
Nicklas Backstrom — Aliaksei Protas
Sonny Milano — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Craig Smith
Beck Malenstyn — Nic Dowd — Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Martin Fehervary — John Carlson
Rasmus Sandin — Nick Jensen
Alexander Alexeyev — Matt Irwin
Charlie Lindgren
Darcy Kuemper
Injuries: Left-wing Carl Hagelin (hip), right-wing Connor Brown (ACL), right-wing T.J. Oshie (upper-body), defenseman Trevor Van Riemsdyk (upper-body), left wing Anthony Mantha (lower-body), and captain Alex Ovechkin (upper-body)
Transactions: The Capitals recalled forward Beck Malenstyn from the AHL’s Hershey Bears on Friday.
First Period
The first twenty minutes went by scoreless.
Quick Stats
SOG: 10-7 Panthers
Face-Off Win %: 67% (Panthers), 33% (Capitals)
Hits: 10-3 Capitals
Second Period
Strome (21) would open the scoring at the 8:51 mark, giving the Capitals a 1-0 lead. Wilson (8) and Protas (11) assisted.
sweet sweet Strome pic.twitter.com/SzjxcguuWe
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) April 9, 2023
The Panthers would tie it up at 1-1 with a goal from center Carter Verhaeghe at the 10:56 mark.
Who else but Swaggy? 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/0p7bHwQdsu
— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) April 9, 2023
Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad would give the visiting team a 2-1 lead at the 13:47 mark on a power play.
Ekky on the power play 💥 pic.twitter.com/N4AhfJQqGN
— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) April 9, 2023
Wilson (10) would tie the game at 2-2 for the Capitals with just under four minutes left in the middle frame. The assists went to Sheary (21) and Kuznetsov (43).
Tommy boy!!!! pic.twitter.com/LtyzvZaoQF
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) April 9, 2023
Quick Stats
Total SOG: 21-19 Capitals
Face-Off Win %: 55% (Panthers), 45% (Capitals)
Total Hits: 14-7 Capitals
Third Period
With a minute left, the Panthers would get goals from left-wing Matthew Tkachuk and center Sam Reinhart for a 4-2 final.
Quick Stats
Total SOG: 37-24 Panthers
Face-Off Win %: 53% (Panthers), 47% (Capitals)
Total Hits: 21–10 Capitals
Notes Through the Game
- Strome’s three-game goal streak is tied for the longest of his career (3/5/22-3/8/22: 6g).
- Strome has scored the game-opening goal in consecutive contests and has scored the Capitals’ first goal of the game in three-straight games.
- Wilson (124g-166a–290p) is now 10 points shy of 300 career points.
- Protas has recorded two points (1g, 1a) in his last three games.
- Wilson registered his sixth multi-point game of the season.
- Kuznetsov is now four points shy of passing Bengt Gustafsson (554) for the eighth-most points in franchise history.
The Capitals host the New York Islanders at Capital One Arena on Monday, the team’s third-to-last game of the 2022-23 season. NBC Sports Washington will have the coverage beginning at 7 PM ET.
By Della Young
Since the Cats and Isles both won, Pits is still in third place for the two wild card spots.
They need some help. If Flo Rida and NY win out, the Pengwhines are in the worst possible position: missing the playoffs, but only a tiny chance at winning the lottery, and no shot at Bedard.
Why do I get this feeling that Bettman will change the rules, and Bedard will lineup with Crosby on October? 🙄🙄🙄
Because the league does not want the record to be broken and will punish the Caps any way they can to try and prevent it. Just wait for next years schedule; I bet they have the most back-to-back games and most of them on the road. And they will have at least 2 long road trips of 6-8games each.
Want another sinking feeling…..the HC for the next 2 years will be PL as no one wants to coach a lame duck team that should be rebuilding but wont because the owner fears not getting the scoring record. Thus for the next 2 years and young players that have a chance to leave and go elsewhere will. As Ovie only needs 72 goals to tie and 73 to pass and he has 3 years on his contract he only needs to score 24.3 goals a season to get to 895 and own the record. Sad that the owner does not realize he can rebuild and still have Ovie score the goals needed to get the record.
By my calculations the Capitals can finish no worse than tied for 11th, and will “lose” the tiebreaker, so are guaranteed a shot at Bedard
Even better, all they have to do is lose to a team fighting for the playoffs, the team with the best record in the history of the game, and arguably the most talented young team in the league and they will secure the 8th (or possibly 9th depending on ping pong balls) pick. That would significantly increase the chances of getting at least a couple of really good players out of this draft, including somebody that might possibly help relatively soon.
Here’s hoping they don’t blow it by suddenly discovering their December prowess.
It’ll certainly help to move up a position or two, but I don’t think it’ll “significantly” increase the chances of landing a good player. It’ll increase the chance of winning one of the lotteries this year by about 1% to 1.5%, so there’s that. But there are excellent players everywhere in the Top Ten. You can find kids like speedster Oliver Moore, big wing Matthew Wood, or Marian Hossa-like Dalibor Dvorsky all up and down the rankings. The Caps are going to get a tremendous player, if they don’t go waaaay off the board, and blow it. The dumbest thing would be to have a great kid fall into their laps, then pick their usual WHL youngster, just because they always draft there, even though he’s not the BPA
This loss although a loss is great for this team. Now if they just lose the last 3 and Philly win their last 3 they can finish 7th rather than 8th from the bottom thus assuring them of a few more balls in the hopper for the #1 pick. Getting the number 1 pick would be sweet especially as the last time we picked in the top 10 we picked Backy. In 2005 with 2 picks in the 1st round we missed on both big time; Joe Finley and Sasha Pokulok. They picked Finley who had a drinking problem, yes even at the time of the draft, one pick before Matt Niskanen. Hopefully this year the draft goes much better for the Caps!!
2007 Karl Alzner 5th overall. Backstrom was 4th overall 2006
Obviously in you vast repertoire of knowledge you do not know who Backy is and that is a shame. Maybe you should spend some time checking your knowledge and not correcting others!
You said the last time we picked in the Top Ten was Backstrom in 2006. That’s incorrect, it was Alzner 5th overall in 2007.
Don’t snark at me, Spanky. You have a long track record of getting things wrong, and need constant correction.
2005 is arguably the worst draft in Washington Capitals team history. They struck out completely. Only Finley played in the NHL, a whopping 21 games, for other teams. Niskanen was the Dallas Stars fans whipping boy for years. He got hounded out of there, and only found his game in Pittsburgh. The right pick at #27, with the benefit of almost 20 years of hindsight, would have been Paul Stastny, or James Neal
Looking at the NYR roster and seeing what they have done with their high draft picks over the last many years, makes you appreciate how poorly the Caps have drafted.