Panthers Double Up Caps, 6-3

For two thirds of the 2022-23 NHL season, the Caps managed to avoid losing three straight games in regulation. But in the wake of Thursday's 6-3 home ice loss to the Florida Panthers, the Caps will enter their next game - Saturday night's Stadium Series tilt against Carolina in Raleigh - lugging a three-game regulation losing streak, their first since dropping each of the last three games of last season.

Each of those three consecutive losses came at home, and the Caps never held a lead in any of games. The Caps have dropped five of their last six homes games (1-5-0), and their lone victory over that span was achieved in the shootout. Washington has held a lead for only 34 minutes and 12 seconds of the total of 365 minutes they've played at Capital One Arena over that span.
The Caps were only down 1-0 after one period, but the deficit became a chasm when Florida scored twice in the front half of the second period to extend its lead to 3-0 against a Caps' team playing without leading goal scorer Alex Ovechkin, and in the throes of a teamwide scoring slump.
Washington entered the game having scored two or fewer goals in seven of its previous eight games and in each of its previous seven home games, so a three-goal deficit was - and proved to be - too deep a hole for a proud team that has authored many a thrilling comeback in its home barn over the years.
"There's no question that you'd rather play with the lead," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "I don't think that we came out poorly per se; I thought we were pretty good defensively in the first period. We only gave up a couple of chances and we were able to generate a half a dozen or so.
"But you're chasing the game, and then the second period unfolds. They get it and they sling it at the net, and anything can happen from that point. And now you're pressing the game."
Since moving to downtown D.C. in December of 1997, this is the first time Washington has come up empty on a homestand of three or more games in duration.
Late in the second, Caps winger T.J. Oshie fired a shot from center point, and Dylan Strome tipped it home to make it a 3-1 game with 4:09 left in the middle frame, giving the home folks hope of one of those stirring comebacks against a Florida team that has yielded the most third-period goals in the NHL this season.
But less than two minutes later, the Panthers took the starch out of that comeback bid when Sasha Barkov scored on a 2-on-1 rush to restore the Cats' three-goal cushion headed to the third.
Oshie tried to spark his teammates and the crowd by stirring up a bit of a hornet's nest in front of the Florida net late in the second, and while his teammates were inspired, it wasn't enough and it came too late.
"What are we waiting for?" asks Laviolette rhetorically, when asked about Oshie's belligerence late in the second. "I said it after the second period: 'T.J., I loved it. It's great. We're in playoff mode here. So more of that. Give me some more of that.'"
Down 4-1 heading into the third period of Thursday's game against Florida, the Caps staged a late rally, getting a pair of power-play goals from Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the back half of the third to draw within a goal of the Panthers before a pair of late empty-net goals from Florida brought the deficit back to three, and accounted for the 6-3 final.
"There's no secrets," says Backstrom. "Honestly, we've just got to get together as a team and chip in for each other and make sure we keep grinding. We're going to do a couple of adjustments of how we played, correct our mistakes and go from there.
"You've got to learn from every loss, so hopefully we're going to learn from this and then move on."
Thursday's victory pushes the Panthers into a virtual tie with Washington for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth. The Caps will lug that three-game losing streak to Raleigh for Saturday's game under the stars and the lights, looking to right a ship that has been a bit off course for the better part of two months now; they are 7-10-1 in 18 games since the turn of the calendar.
"We've got to do more," says Laviolette. "It's not good enough. We've got to have better execution. There's passes out there that need to be made. And there is physicality that can be found somewhere in the puck battles. And the things that we can do better, we have to do better."