Skating in the final road game of the regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning fell to the Washington Capitals in a 4-2 loss Saturday night at Capital One Arena. The Bolts fell to 44-29-8 in the defeat and will return home to close out the regular season with games against the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Sonny Milano opened the scoring at the 9:56 mark of the first period to give Washington a 1-0 lead. After a shot from the high slot by Max Pacioretty was blocked by Darren Raddysh, the rebound came right out to Milano, who was able to beat Andrei Vasilevskiy for his 14th goal of the season.
The Bolts got a response only 3:10 later with Anthony Duclair evening the score at 1-1 with his 23rd goal of the campaign.
Battling in front of the net and establishing position near the top of the crease, Duclair looked towards the point where Darren Raddysh was waiting to fire a shot on goal. Sifting a wrist shot towards the net, Raddysh had his shot deflected by Brayden Point before the puck eventually ricocheted off the skate of Duclair and into the back of the net.
But just as Tampa Bay had a response to the Washington goal, the Capitals had an immediate answer to Duclair’s tally as well.
In a play slightly similar to the first goal, Milano found himself alone in front of the net and jumped on another rebound in front to put Washington up 2-1 with his second goal of the night just 54 seconds after Duclair tied the game at one apiece.
As the goals continued to pile up, Brandon Hagel got on the board and tied the game once again, scoring his 25th goal of the season 2:24 after Milano’s second goal of the contest.
With Anthony Cirelli and Steven Stamkos working hard along the boards in the offensive zone, Cirelli moved the puck to Stamkos, who won a puck battle and fed a backhand pass to the high slot for Hagel.
Gaining possession, Hagel made a move around Nick Jensen and fired a backhand right into the top right corner that handcuffed Charlie Lindgren and made it a 2-2 game with 3:36 remaining in the opening frame.
After a four-goal first period, the goals slowed down a bit as the teams skated through a scoreless middle frame and entered the final 20 minutes of regulation in a 2-2 tie.
Forced to kill off a 5-on-3 advantage, the Lightning got through the first penalty, but the Capitals found a way to get the go-ahead goal shortly after with John Carlson netting the game winning goal with a shot from the right circle at the 8:29 mark of the third.
Nic Dowd added an insurance goal with 3:14 remaining in the third to cap off the 4-2 win for Washington.
Bolts by the Numbers
Anthony Duclair netted his 23rd goal of the season and seventh since being acquired by Tampa Bay at this year’s trade deadline.
Brayden Point picked up his 44th assist of the season to push his season point total to 89 (45-44—89). Point has found the scoresheet in three consecutive contests (2-2—4).
Darren Raddysh pushed his season point total to 32 (6-26—32) with the secondary assist on the Duclair goal.
Brandon Hagel scored his 25th goal of the year and has picked up 10 points over his last 10 games (2-8—10).
Steven Stamkos recorded the primary assist on Hagel’s goal and has now logged 13 points over his last eight games (10-3—13).
Anthony Cirelli logged the secondary helper on Hagel’s goal and now has 45 points this season (20-25—45).Erik Cernak blocked four shots and became the fourth player in Lightning franchise history to record 500 career blocked shots.
Victor Hedman skated in his 1,051st career NHL game to pass Loui Eriksson and take sole possession of the 12th-most games played by a Swedish-born skater in NHL history.
Bolts Quotes
Jon Cooper: “I don’t care what you say. They are on a different emotional level than we are, but in the end, there were 20 minutes to play and the game was tied, so dig in here for a bit. We just made some mental errors. One was on the penalty and then the fourth goal. You can’t make the plays we made in the D-zone and allow that kind of stuff to happen. Those are easy ones. That was the disappointing part. You just have to play this out for 20 minutes and the penalties bit us in the butt.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
- Sonny Milano
- John Carlson
- Charlie Lindgren
Lightning Look Ahead
- Monday, April 15 vs. Buffalo Sabres, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
- Wednesday, April 17 vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
