Caps Fall in OT

FINAL SCORE: Tampa Bay 4- Washington 3 (OT)
GOAL SCOERES: WAS (Hendricks, Perreault, Brouwer); TB (Purcell, St Louis, Thompson, Stamkos-GWG)
GOALIES: W- Garon; L- Vokoun

Summary
The Capitals drop a close division game 4-3 in OT and gained a valuable point in the standings entering a pivotal Southeast match up against the Florida Panthers. The game as a whole was very sloppy on both sides. That can be attributed to the All Star Break, but in the case of the Capitals there is a good chance it had to do with who was missing. The Capitals look lost and times and passes were off all night, particularly on the anemic power play. With all those factors, it is somewhat impressive the Capitals were able to get a point, which was the general feeling in the locker room postgame.

Recap
1st: The start of this Southeast tilt was very sloppy and it took both teams awhile to start clicking. The Capitals drew blood first though and Brooks Laich made an impressive falling sweep pass to Matt Hendricks driving the net. Hendricks whiffed on the shot, but recovered with an impressive top shelf backhand. The positive energy was zapped away later in the period though as a defensive breakdown by Hamrlik led to an easy backdoor goal from Teddy Purcell in the close minutes (which has plagued DC this year).

2nd: The second period was all about momentum. Tampa Bay came out flying in the 2nd and threatened to score on multiple occasions. But, the Capitals took to momentum about a quarter of the way in thanks to one of many sparkling saves by Vokoun as he robbed Stamkos on a breakaway. Moments later, Mathieu Perraeult took a high stick from Steve Downie that gave the Capitals a 4 minute power play. Unfortunately, the power play struggles continued and a fruitless power play shifted the momentum right back to Tampa Bay, resulting in two goals against (the first of which should not have counted). The Capitals made it a game with a lucky bounce off Nate Thompson on a Perreault centering feed to make it 3-2 heading into the break.

3rd: The Capitals used their momentum from the 2nd to play a pretty good all around 3rd period that resulted in the game tying goal by Brouwer (thanks in part to a questionable hold by Brooks Laich). After failing to break the tie, the Capitals went into a very conservative mode for the last five minutes, clearly playing for the 1 OT point.

OT: Tampa Bay had most of the chances and would have ended the game much sooner if not for the heroics of Vokoun, whose save on Lecavilier might have been the save of the year. Laich had a chance to end the game, but failed to make the next pass and despite another spectacular save on St Louis, Stamkos put home his league leading 33rd goal to clinch the game for Tampa.
 
Star of the Game: Laich/Hendricks/Brouwer Line
​The trio was by far the best line for the Capitals all night. Lots of energy and threw a ton of pucks on net to create scoring. This is a line I would consider keeping together even when the big guns come back. More to come on lines later.

Goat of the Game: Hamrlik
​The 37 year old continues to look very slow and out of position at a lot. He was terrible on the 1st goal and even though he was interfered with, looked bad on the 2nd. Carlson gets 2nd place honors here as he was Hamrlik's partner most of the night.

Final Thoughts
​Considering the struggles the Capitals have had on the road this year, any sort of points have to be a small victory. And fighting back from down 2 without Ovechkin and Backstrom is also impressive. But it is hard to overlook how sloppy they looked for most of the game. It is also reaching the point where you get the sinking feeling that if the road doesn’t get fixed soon, it could cost the Capitals the Southeast if not the playoffs all together. 
​As for the lines, with so many people out, Hunter has had to juggle and I think he has found something that could work. Semin-Perreault-MoJo looks like a line that could work as the Boston game showed. Last night, Laich-Hendricks-Brouwer showed a lot of promise as an energy line with some punch to it. I would keep those intact even when healthy and put Chimera on the wing with Backstorm and OV. They did that some last year and I really liked the straight line no nonsense speed Chimera brought to the table. The other option is to put Knuble there, who is bound to breakout at some point.  That would leave Halpern-Knuble-Ward as a very experienced 4th line.
Big tilt tonight in FLA that could go a long way in determining the Southeast Crown.