📸: Our hero Mahesh
The Washington Capitals, for some damn reason, thought they could win Monday’s game against the Florida Panthers on special teams. No, dude, you definitely cannot. I promise.
Firstly, Tom Wilson scored on the rush with Martin Fehervary. Less than a minute later, Anton Lundell got a layup set up by Jeff Petry. Sam Reinhart put a devious shot past Logan Thompson on a power play, but Tom Wilson responded with a PPG of his own, a perfect bumper-slot shot.
The second period yielded no goals, and then Dylan Strome scored on a delayed Panthers penalty to give the Capitals their lead back. Brad Marchand tied it with a mid-air tap-in. Aaron Ekblad beat Thompson glove-side to give Florida the lead with seven minutes to go.
Sam Reinhart got an empty-netter from Terabithia. It was over.
Caps lose.
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I loved Marty Fehervary‘s drive to earn an assist on Tom Wilson’s goal. Lots of speed, not a lot of coverage from the Cats.
Brad Marchand drew a trip from Ryan Leonard in the second period. Marchand’s reaction to the penalty was … elaborate. If his NHL season ends early, he should look into a pair skating routine with Moira Kelly.
Aaron Ekblad was also a bit … filigreed on the interference penalty taken by Ovechkin.
And then Ovi dove to put Forsling in the box. Haha. Turnabout is fair play.
Ryan Leonard had a terrible outing. Barely saw the offensive zone and committed two penalties. Both of the penalties were soft, but they still count.
Ryan’s first penalty was one of ten penalties in the first fifty minutes – eleven if you count the Seth Jones high stick twice. I generally like how the Caps played but it seems like a tactical error to be loose with sticks when the opponent ranks eleven spots higher on the power play and twenty spots higher on the penalty kill.
Subplot to a great hockey game has been the guy under the press box intermittently playing the harmonica and driving the security staff crazy. Cat and mouse game going on here between harmonica guy and the people who want him to stop it
— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) December 30, 2025
From the Hawkins National Laboratory out-of-town scoreboard, Andrew Mangiapane is on the outs with Edmonton. Meanwhile, Nick Jensen is a healthy scratch in Ottawa. Taylor Raddysh is an afterthought player on an afterthought team, and Lars Eller is on IR. Anthony Mantha is doing fine in Pittsburgh though; he could hit 30 goals.
A three-point night (two goals, one assist) for Tom Wilson. He was an inch from scoring a hat trick, shorthanded no less, if not for Sergei Bobrovsky’s glove save. Wilson is about to crack twenty goals and is on pace for career year. He opened presents last week and will be named to Team Canada in a couple days. It’s good to be him.
With an inverse stat line is Dylan Strome, who I think has been steadily improving over the last ten days or so. Strome set up Fehervary for the rush on the first Wilson goal, hit the bumper pass above to Wilson for the second, and scored that funky 56-footer in the third. Strome’s line was always on attack during five-on-five play, as rare as five-on-five play was.
I’ll add that the Wilson power-play goal is the ideal power-play goal. It’s the kind you’d expect of Backstrom-to-Oshie a few years back. It’s good to see the PP so functional, for freaking once.
Pretty underwhelming night from jersey number eight.
From Sunrise, where it’s 72 degrees and not apocalyptically windy #joebsuitofthenight
— RMNB (@rmnb.bsky.social) 2025-12-30T00:17:13.609Z
The Caps didn’t have the edge in attempts, they made some bad choices in neutral, and they took way too many penalties. But they got some fun chances and made savvy adjustments. Were this game played entirely at five-on-five, I think the Caps would have won.
I am optimistic that the Caps can get their even-strength play back on track, but I don’t have that same hope for the power play. You could argue that a good PP has never been more instrumental for postseason success, and you cannot argue that the Caps PP is good. I’d really like to see this team make some personnel changes before the Olympic break.