Caps Fall on Verhaeghe's OT Goal, 3-2

Carter Verhaeghe scored on a rebound at 4:57 of overtime to lift the Florida Panthers to a 3-2 comeback victory over the Capitals on Monday night at Capital One Arena in Game 4 of the best-of-seven first-round playoff series between the two clubs. Verhaeghe's goal - his second of the game and third of the series - completed Florida's late comeback over the Caps and squared the set at two games each, effectively shrinking it to a best-of-three series.

Florida tied the game with 2:04 left in regulation, getting even on a Sam Reinhart goal while skating with the goaltender pulled in favor of an extra attacker.
"It was kind of crazy," says Verhaeghe. "We tied it up late there, and we made a couple of good plays. It's one shot in overtime, so we're lucky we got that one first."
Game 5 is back in Florida on Wednesday night.
"We've shown that all year, the resilience, and we stuck to our game, which we've done all year," says Panthers interim coach Andrew Brunette. "I think it got away from us a little bit [in Game 3], and today I thought from the start we got into our flow a little bit. Things were looking a little shaky at the end, but we showed a lot of poise and again, the resilience that we showed all season long came through there at the end."
The Caps got another strong performance in net from Ilya Samsonov, who stopped 29 of 32 shots and deserved a better fate. Washington supported Samsonov defensively with 24 blocked shots, but the Caps had a feeble offensive game on Monday night. They managed just 16 shots on Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky, and only 11 of those shots came at even strength.
Even with an anemic attack, Washington didn't trail until Verhaeghe put them away in the extra session. T.J. Oshie staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 7:15 of the first; John Carlson's center point drove bounded off Oshie's leg as he was trying to jump rope on the shot, and it found its way past Bobrovsky.
Verhaeghe tied it on a 2-on-1 rush later in the first, taking a feed from Aaron Ekblad and tucking the puck under Samsonov while the two teams were playing 4-on-4 hockey.
The second period was a morass of penalties and special teams, starting a dozen seconds in when the Caps were gifted a power play and a chance to retake the lead when Florida blueliner Ben Chiarot sailed the puck over the glass. Including Oshie's goal in the first, Washington's power play has managed five timely goals in this series. But the Caps couldn't do anything with this opportunity on a fresh sheet of ice, nor could they convert on a pair of late Florida penalties in the second, which resulted in 43 seconds worth of 5-on-3 time for the Caps.
The Caps spent a total of 5:17 of the second period on the power play, managing just one shot on net during that span. In between those two patches of power play time, Washington killed off three straight Florida power plays, with Samsonov making five saves during the six minutes in which the Cats had the extra man.
The Caps had more offensive wherewithal in the third, starting to play with more verve and spending more time in the Florida end. But they still weren't generating much in the way of chances or shots on net, not until just before the midpoint of the frame.
Oshie put a heavy hit on Sam Bennett as he approached the Washington line, launching the Florida forward and separating him from the puck. Alex Ovechkin scooped up the puck and sent Evgeny Kuznetsov into Florida ice and behind the defense. Kuznetsov cut to the cage and got Bobrovsky down and out of position before patiently firing a shot home from an angle, putting the Caps back on top at 9:31.
"We forced them to make the turnover, and we attacked quick after that," recounts Kuznetsov. "Nice pass. That's something we've been focusing [on] for a couple of years."
In the 42 minutes and 16 seconds of hockey played between the Oshie and Kuznetsov goals, the Caps were outshot 19-7. Only five of those seven Washington shots came at 5-on-5.
Samsonov preserved the lead with a crucial stop on Sasha Barkov a dozen seconds after Kuznetsov's goal. With less than five minutes remaining, Bobrovsky denied Marcus Johansson's breakaway bid, a save that loomed large shortly thereafter.
The Cats pulled Bobrovsky with 3:09 remaining, and seconds later Garnet Hathaway missed the empty Florida net by inches, and the Caps were whistled for icing instead. Washington lost the ensuing draw, and the Panthers put sustained heat on the Caps in their own end for the next minute. Following a couple of misses and a Hathaway block, Reinhart fired a shot past Samsonov from the slot with 2:04 remaining, forcing the first overtime of the series and setting the stage for Verhaeghe's heroics.
The Caps had no shots on net in nearly five minutes of overtime, and Florida ended the game in transition on its only two shots. Ekblad sent Verhaeghe into Washington ice after Connor McMichael lost the handle near the Florida line. From the high slot, Verhaeghe fired, and Samsonov kicked it out with his right pad. Verhaeghe retrieved it and fired again from the left circle, hitting the far corner of the net to end the game and square the series.
Officials took a brief video look at the goal to see whether Florida's Jonathan Huberdeau might have interfered with Samsonov's ability to make the save, but they quickly upheld the call on the ice.
"The third period was our best period," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We came out and played hard. The first half of the game was kind of mucked up by power plays and penalty kills, and there wasn't a lot of 5-on-5 time, not many 5-on-5 chances, and we gave up a little too much at 4-on-4. But we pushed in the third period and got it to where we wanted."