RECAP: Washington Capitals 6, Florida Panthers 3

The Florida Panthers see three-game winning streak come to an end against the red-hot Washington Capitals.

On Tuesday night, the Florida Panthers fell 6-3 to the league-leading Washington Capitals, snapping a three-game winning streak. While the game provided a lot of action for both teams, the Panthers could not capitalize on their chances, only netting three out of their 34 shots on goal.

Florida fought its way back from multiple deficits in the first two periods before a pair of goals from Lars Eller and Nic Dowd early in the third period created a two-goal hole they could not dig out of.

Matthew Tkachuk extended his goal streak to four games to bring the Panthers back within a goal with 7:46 to go, but Washington netted a pair of empty-net goals to jump into first place in the NHL standings.

The Panthers killed off two penalties in the first period, extending a stretch of 12 of 13 successful kills dating back to Jan. 22. But Andrew Mangiapane lit the lamp first at 14:08 with assists from Rasmus Sandin and Nic Dowd to put Washington ahead 1-0.

Less than five minutes later, the Panthers proved again why they are called the Cardiac Cats. Sam Bennett, assisted by Jesper Boqvist, put a backhand shot behind goalie Logan Thompson, bringing the Panthers even with the Capitals just 30 seconds before the end of the first period.

The second period opened up with a power play for the Cats, however, a short-handed snap-shot by the Capital’s Tom Wilson, assisted by Aliaksei Protas, put them back in the lead a little more than a minute in.

Needing an answer, the Panthers had to look no further than captain Sasha Barkov’s backhand assisted by Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart just about three minutes later at 4:14 to even the score.

The goal extended Barkov’s Carter Verhaeghe’s assist and point streak to three games and Sam Reinhart’s assist and point streak to four. After this, the action was limited, and the period ended the same way it began—tied, except this time at two apiece.

The third period began with a wrister past Bobrovsky from Eller at 2:19, the Capital’s regaining the lead after Barkov’s evening goal and getting the go-ahead goal just less than 4 minutes later from a snapshot by Nic Dowd with an assist from Mangiapane and Dylan Strome, making the score 4-2 Capitals.

The Panthers certainly did not appreciate how the Capitals were smothering Sergei Bobrovsky after their lead-taking goal. This caused a slight scrum, resulting in roughing calls on Evan Rodrigues and Jakob Chycrun.

The Panthers, who went ahead with fire, got one back 1:36 later with a goal from Matthew Tkachuk, assisted by Nate Schmidt and Sam Bennett, which extended Tkachuk’s goal and point streak to four games.

Despite a hard-fought third period and an exhilarating last few minutes, the Panthers allow Aliaksei Protas and Alex Ovechkin (now 17 away from Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record) to score empty net goals, the final score 6-3 in favor of the Capitals.