Alexander Ovechkin did not help Washington defeat the reigning champion on home ice. The Capitals suffered another defeat and are moving further away from the playoff zone. The capital’s club urgently needs a reboot.

Fight for the playoffs

Before the meeting with the defending champion, Washington lost its place in the playoff zone. Over the last 10 matches, the Capitals suffered six defeats and lost to their competitors. The lack of stability can be associated with injuries to the main players of the capital club. So far, two central forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois and Justin Sourdif, as well as winger Tom Wilson, are injured.

Head coach Spencer Carbery is looking for a replacement for them, giving chances to the hockey players of the farm club. Thus, Russian forward Ivan Miroshnichenko, who played only two games in the NHL this season, received another call. However, the same “Florida” suffered more serious losses, but still improved a lot after the disastrous start of the regular season and now continues to fight for the playoffs.

But the last meeting for the Panthers turned out to be a real nightmare. The reigning champion suffered total humiliation in the away match against Carolina, losing with a large score of 1:9. At the same time, Sergei Bobrovsky missed all nine goals, which was the worst result in his career. Immediately after the meeting, the Florida players announced that they intended to rehabilitate themselves in the match against Washington. So Paul Maurice’s team had enough motivation.

The capital’s club is moving away from the playoff zone

Washington opened the scoring in the middle of the first period, but after a request from the visiting coaching staff, the referees examined the moment and canceled the goal. The Capitals seemed to lose focus after the referees’ decision and conceded themselves just 35 seconds later. Anthony-John Greer opened the scoring by beating Logan Thompson. In total, the Panthers attempted 14 shots during the opening period, but Thompson missed only one.

As a result, Florida took the first period, but it seemed that there would be an equal fight between the neighbors in the standings. And the capital’s club quickly lived up to expectations. First, in the 23rd minute, Jacob Chykran received a pass from Alexei Protas and fired a wrist shot from under the player into the open corner. The defender then charged hard and accurately from the blue line, slamming his 17th goal of the season into the net. Chickran is the second-leading scorer among defensive players. Only Columbus leader Zachary Werenski is ahead.

Connor McMichael and Jacob Chickran / Photo: © Scott Taetsch / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

But Florida quickly seized the initiative and equalized thanks to the efforts of Samuel Bennett. And at the end of the period, the Panthers converted the majority: Uvis Balinskis scored in the 36th minute. After the second break, Washington unsuccessfully tried to spoil Daniil Tarasov’s statistics, but the Russian goalkeeper coped with his job.

As a result, at the end of the meeting, the Capitals replaced the goalkeeper with a sixth field player and went to storm Tarasov’s goal, however, they could not save the match: Anton Lundell hit the empty goal 80 seconds before the siren. Then the hosts again called Thompson to the bench, but the result was the same. Only this time it was Carter Verhaeghe who scored.

Florida won on the road – 5:2. And for Washington it’s the third defeat in the last four meetings. The Capitals are now two points behind the playoff zone. As for Alexander Ovechkin, the Russian was unable to show any effective actions and ended the meeting with a negative utility indicator – “-3”. Ovechkin spent only 16 minutes 8 seconds on the ice and made only one shot on target.