As the age-old hockey adage goes, “They don’t ask how, they ask how many.” It’s a good thing they don’t ask how, because it’s hard to say exactly how the Capitals managed their League-leading eighth comeback win of the season on Wednesday night over the Lightning in Tampa, overcoming shovels full of adversity to win wild and crazy 5-4 game at Amalie Arena.
Three times the Capitals fell behind – each time because of their own miscues – and three times they fought back to pull even with the Lightning. And after Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli did some amateur dentistry on Washington’s Dylan Strome in a bizarre sequence late in the third period, the Caps finally got over the hump and took the lead.
Charlie Lindgren made sure that they kept it.
“There was a little bit of everything in that game,” says Caps’ winger Tom Wilson, whose late power-play goal won it for Washington. “But when stuff happens and there’s a lot of ups and downs, you find out a lot about your team and your teammates. I couldn’t be more proud of the group. And I’m proud of our goalie and just everybody stepping up. It was a pretty gutsy, gutsy effort tonight.”
Lindgren is universally and unconditionally beloved by his teammates. So when he inadvertently backhanded the puck into his own net to put Washington down by a goal in the third period on Wednesday night, his teammates were bound and determined to bail him out. And Lindgren was equally bound and determined not to let in another goal after his gaffe left the Caps trailing for the third time.
Lindgren and the Capitals didn’t let that own goal define their night or the game. Plucky Chucky barred the door the rest of the way, and his teammates picked up their brother with a late third period rally, getting out of Florida with their sixth straight road win and a sweep of the two-game Mentors’ Trip.
“[Resiliency] is the word, showing the character of the group once again,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “It was a tough start to the game: it just felt like we were overwhelmed a little bit. We couldn’t handle a puck and were back on our heels to get out of that [first] period. But that just speaks to our group once again; we just wouldn’t ride off into the sunset and just let it be an off night. The guys made a decision in the second period; they were going to find a way to dig in and get to our game.”
By the time the Caps got to their game in the second, they were down a pair of pucks; Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point scored twice in the first, beating Lindgren in transition at 3:58 and converting a sublime Nikita Kucherov pass on the power play at 12:27. Point’s power-play goal ended a streak of 25 straight successful penalty killing missions for Washington on the road, a streak that dated back to their first road game of the season on Oct. 19 in New Jersey.
Washington was much better in the middle period; it hemmed the Lightning in its end for a lengthy defensive zone shift early in the period, forcing a couple of icings. A few minutes later, on a delayed penalty call, the Caps cut the Lightning lead in half when Andrew Mangiapane tipped home a Lars Eller clapper from just above the right circle at 10:31.
Less than a minute after the Mangiapane marker, the Caps went shorthanded for the third time against the dangerous Tampa Bay power play. About midway through that kill, Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman missed the net on a drive from the point. Wilson corralled the lively rebound off the back wall, fed Aliaksei Protas and joined the big forward on a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush. From the top of the left circle, Protas called his own number and fired a shot that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy on the short side, squaring the score at 2-2.
But the Caps couldn’t quite get out of the middle frame unscathed. With 71 seconds left in the period, they won a draw in their own end, but they failed to advance it past the red line, giving the Lightning’s fourth line an opportunity to go on the forecheck. The Lightning’s Mikey Eyssimont won the puck behind the Washington net and tucked it between the left post and Lindgren’s right pad, restoring the Tampa Bay lead at 3-2 with 43.4 seconds left.
With help from a pair of sharp passes from Protas and Taylor Raddysh, respectively, Strome struck on a 2-on-1 at 1:37 of the third, evening the game once again.
Lindgren made a big save on Guentzel from point blank range to keep it that way a couple minutes later, but Point finished his hat trick at 7:25 of the third when Lindgren, trying to put the puck safely behind the net, instead fired it directly into the cage. Obviously miffed by his miscue, Lindgren sailed the offending puck into the crowd and promptly shook it off.
Less than a minute after the own goal, he denied Kucherov’s bid to put the Bolts back up by a pair.
“It’s one of those moments where you’ve obviously got two choices in that moment,” says Lindgren. “You can either go into your shell, or you can go and battle. It wasn’t fun in the moment, but the guys rallied around me, and we found a way to get a big win.”
That rally started just after the midpoint of the third when John Carlson beat Vasilevskiy from the right circle to knot the game once again, this time at 4-4. With just over four minutes left, Cirelli fired a puck past Lindgren from the slot, but he did so just after he ran his stick blade across Strome’s choppers.
Instead of Tampa Bay owning a 5-4 lead, the game remained 4-4 as Cirelli headed to the box to serve a double-minor for hi-sticking.
Did Strome lose any teeth?
“Half of one I think,” says Strome. “I don’t know. It feels weird in there. It doesn’t feel good.”
What’s also weird is that the Lightning was actually offside on the play, so Cirelli’s goal wouldn’t have counted if the penalty had nullified it. But the penalty stood.
“It was clearly offside,” says Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who won’t soon forget his 900th NHL game. “And this is what’s tough about the situation, is this is the way the rules are; it goes offside, the play gets to continue, and then if a goal is scored, it will come off the board. But if a penalty is taken, it’s not coming off the board. So that’s always been a tough thing for me at times, but we know the rules. That’s how it goes.”
The goal was nullified, and Cirelli was incarcerated for a double minor for hi-sticking. On the ensuing power play, Wilson tipped home a Jakob Chychrun drive from the point, giving Washington its first lead of the night with 3:26 remaining.
“We found a way to get one on the power play,” says Strome. “Unfortunately, my teeth took a little bit of a hit on the play. But it’s all good; we got the win.
“I’m feeling good now, feeling good. Spittin’ chiclets.”
Lindgren shut the door the rest of the way, and the Caps swept the Mentors’ Trip for the first time in just over six years.
“I can speak personally; he’s bailed me out a bunch of times,” says Wilson of Lindgren. “We love that guy back there. No one works harder than him. He’s been a backbone for us for a while. Obviously, he buried that one in his own net, but after that he shut the door. And it’s not easy when something like that happens.
“He rallies, and he stands on top of his head for the rest of the game. I’ve got a lot of respect for that guy, and we just wanted to make sure that we were trying to help him out and score a couple of goals for him.”
“We all stuck up for each other,” says Strome. “Chucky has saved our bacon I don’t know how many times since I’ve been here, especially; I’m thinking a lot about last year, and he doesn’t have many of those gaffes. We all were pretty calm. It’s one of those things that just happens, and the hockey gods were on our side. And we just found a way to battle back.”
They battled back for the guy who has battled so gamely for them in his three seasons as a Capital.
“I think it’s character,” says Lindgren of his teammates. “I’ve been saying it all year; we’ve got such a great group. It starts at the top with the coaching staff, and it trickles down to our veteran players, the leadership group. And I can say wholeheartedly that everyone on this team has bought in.
“And when I made that big mistake, the boys – we all pretty much laughed it off, even me. I chucked that puck out of the rink and I kind of chuckled to myself. It was obviously probably the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life, in terms of on the ice.
“The guys picked me up, and I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys.”
And we all need to respect a guy named Chucky who refers to “chucking” the puck out of the rink and “chuckling” about it.
