After a lengthy two-game (overtime) losing streak, the Washington Capitals decided to change things up a bit last night and get back to their winning ways against the visiting Panthers. It took the full team to do so, as six different Capitals scored a goal in what was a fun, scrappy, and highly entertaining back-and-forth game between two heavyweights.
The Caps were the first to strike, Andrew Mangiapane picking up his first point of the night on a sneaky laser of a shot to put the good guys up 1-0 late in the first; Florida’s Sam Bennett evened things up less than six minutes later. Then it was Tom Wilson with the shorthanded goal (off a sick pass from Aliaksei Protas) to give the Caps back the lead…until Aleksander Barkov again tied things up, this time just three minutes later.
Lars Eller, who had a really good game in his own right, put the Caps back on top early in the third period with this lovely goal:
This time, instead of letting the Panthers even the score yet again, the Caps took the revolutionary tactic of extending their lead, instead – and they did in style. First, they drew a delayed penalty call on the Panthers and maintained possession for a good 15 seconds before Andrew Mangiapane started the push up the ice, Nic Dowd driving the net. Mangiapane made a nice pass to Dowd in the slot, who deflected it past Sergei Bobrovsky (and then got taken out and pulled into a mini line brawl for his efforts):

Just for funsies, here’s the visualizer on the goal as well, which is highly entertaining and frankly cuts off too early:

Sure, Matthew Tkachuk cut the lead back to one about 90 seconds later, but that just meant Dowd’s awesome goal would stand as the game-winner. Add on empty-netters for Aliaksei Protas and Alex Ovechkin (with 0.1 seconds left, yeesh), and that’s a nice win for the good guys.
Two games remain before the 4 Nations break, with the Flyers ahead tomorrow night followed by the traditional Super Bowl Sunday matinee – against a decidedly nontraditional opponent, as they’ll face Utah – before the Caps get some well-deserved time off.