Fresh off a perfect three-game homestand, the Florida Panthers will hit the road to face Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night in a battle of division leaders.
Carter Verhaeghe played a large role in each of the last two games for the Atlantic Division-leading Panthers. He collected a goal and an assist in a 5-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday before recording his fourth career hat trick to highlight a 6-3 win over the New York Islanders on Sunday.
“It was nice. I have been shooting it a lot lately, so it feels good to have a couple go in,” said Verhaeghe, who also had an assist on Matthew Tkachuk’s empty-net goal versus the Islanders.
Florida head coach Paul Maurice said of Verhaeghe: “We felt his game is trending in the right way. He’s got it cooking now.”
Sam Reinhart, captain Aleksander Barkov and Tkachuk are heating up in their own right for the Panthers.
Reinhart has scored in back-to-back games to lift his team-leading goal total to 31. He also has four assists during his three-game point streak.
Tkachuk, who also notched an assist on Sunday, has nine points (four goals, five assists) in his past five games.
Barkov, in turn, set up three goals versus New York to boost his assist total to a team-leading 35 on the season. He has eight points (one goal, seven assists) in his last five games.
Verhaeghe set up defenseman Niko Mikkola’s goal seven minutes into the first period against Washington on Nov. 25 before it was all downhill from there for Florida.
Lars Eller scored twice and defenseman Jakob Chychrun recorded a goal and two assists as the Capitals cruised to a 4-1 victory in that game in Sunrise, Fla.
Fast forward to the present, Metropolitan Division-leading Washington enters Tuesday’s tilt having lost consecutive 5-4 overtime decisions and three of its last four games overall (1-1-2).
Although the Capitals fell to the Western Conference-best Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, they extended their home point streak to 13 games (9-0-4).
“To get that game tied and to score four against that team and that goaltender (two-time Vezina Trophy recipient Connor Hellebuyck), there’s positives that we’ll take out of that game,” Washington head coach Spencer Carbery said.
“I just thought we could’ve done a better job in a lot of different scenarios to win that hockey game in regulation, and we just didn’t. And right to the end — we make a silly mental mistake in overtime and let (Josh) Morrissey beat us off the wall, which, that’s uncharacteristic. That’s not us.”
Ovechkin scored for the second time in as many games on Saturday following a blast from the point to forge a 4-4 tie with 7:39 remaining in the third period. It was the three-time Hart Trophy recipient’s team-leading 24th goal of the season and 877th career, moving him 18 goals shy of breaking Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record.
–Field Level Media
