Capitals knocked down early and never recover in l…
Caps knocked down early, never recover in loss to Tampa Bay originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Two days after the Capitals blew out the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1, it was Tampa Bay’s turn to issue a beatdown on its home ice as Washington fell 6-3 Sunday night.
It was all Lightning for the first 20 minutes, jumping ahead 4-0 in a period that nearly went by without the Capitals registering a shot on goal. Though two of the goals took unfortunate bounces off Washington players, they pulled goalie Darcy Kuemper before the period was up.
Aside from a late second-period goal by winger Conor Sheary, the Capitals never got their offense going enough to climb back into it.
Here are three takeaways from the Capitals’ loss to the Lightning.
Kuemper pulled after disastrous first
The Lightning came out aggressive Sunday, showing the level of physicality expected for a team that lost a player to injury on an illegal hit in the first leg of a home-and-home series. They scored their first goal just 1:28 into the game when defenseman Mikhail Sergachev fired a shot that bounced off center Dylan Strome to get past Kuemper.
That wouldn’t be the only unlucky goal scored on Kuemper. Tampa Bay picked up another tally later in the period on a shot that deflected off Capitals defenseman Erik Gustafsson’s skate.
In all, the Lightning scored four times on nine shots against Kuemper, forcing assistant coach Kevin McCarthy — standing in for head coach Peter Laviolette while he’s in COVID protocol — to pull him for Charlie Lindgren after only 16:22 of ice time.
Sergachev was the standout player for Tampa Bay in the period. He scored twice and recorded an assist on the other two to match the franchise record for most points by a defenseman in a period.
Capitals’ offense disappears
Washington appeared to be breaking out of its scoring slump this week with a pair of five-goal outings against the Lightning and Edmonton Oilers. However, the Capitals were unable to carry that over into…
