The Florida Panthers have now lost four games in a row, and six of their last seven, after dropping a lackluster 4-1 decision to the Washington Capitals at Amerant Bank Arena.
Florida lit the lamp at the seven-minute mark and then ended up getting blanked by Washington goalie Logan Thompson the rest of the way. Thompson finished up with 20 saves.
Niko Mikkola joined the rush to open the scoring by beating Thompson from the lower left circle after taking a sweet dish from Sam Bennett, who drew both defensemen towards him before making the pass. Carter Verhaeghe started the play and matched Bennett in collecting his 10th assist on Mikkola’s first goal of the campaign.
Recently re-acquired forward Lars Eller would convert a pretty pass from Jakob Chychrun with 2:11 left in the opening frame to knot the score. Hendrix Lapierre picked up the second assist on Eller’s first goal since returning to the Capitals.
The second period belonged to the goaltenders as Thompson made 11 saves and Spencer Knight stopped eight shots, making it anyone’s game in the third period.
Unfortunately, it was Washington who ended its losing streak as Chychrun snapped the tie 78 seconds into the third with a wrist shot from right point that eluded a screened Knight. The assists on the 5-on-3 goal, which came with Uvis Balinskis and Aaron Ekblad in the penalty box, went to Dylan Strome and Tom Wilson.
The Cats only mustered up a meager six shots over the final twenty minutes and the Capitals finally put the game away with late empty-netters from Eller and rookie Ivan Miroshnichenko.
Chychrun produced his third point of the night by combining with Pierre-Luc Dubois to set up Eller’s second goal. Matt Roy drew the lone assist on Miroshnichenko’s goal.
Florida wasted another good performance from Knight (27 saves on 29 shots faced) by failing to provide him with goal support as they did in Chicago four days prior. Not sure why the team has gone into the crapper after dominating league-leading Winnipeg ten days ago, but they have and aren’t playing Panthers hockey. Things don’t get any easier with red-hot Toronto coming to town on Wednesday night. That’s followed by a back-to-back against the always difficult Carolina Hurricanes. The Cats need to get it together before this plunge takes them out of the top-three in the Atlantic Division.
Stars & Stripes
- The Capitals pushed the pace and earned its first regular season victory against Florida since November 26, 2021. It was their first win against the Panthers in Sunrise since November 7, 2019.
- Sam Reinhart was limited to two shots on goal and saw his 13-game point streak come to an unceremonious end. Reinhart played 22:12 and was also credited with two blocks and a hit.
- Logan Thompson improved his record to 9-1-1 with a 2.58 GAA and a .917 save percentage. He made a key save on Evan Rodrigues and then denied Nate Schmidt on the rebound late in the second period to keep the game tied.
- In addition to earning his 10th assist of the season, Sam Bennett matched Matthew Tkachuk, Tom Wilson, Nic Dowd and Martin Fehervary with a game-high five hits.
- 35-year-old Lars Eller has scored in three games this season. And in each of those three games, he’s scored two goals.