The Capitals preyed on sloppy and sluggish defensive coverage by the Lightning last night. Way before the game slipped out of reach, less than five minutes into the contest with the score 0-0, the Capitals controlled play in the Lightning end for over a minute. It was a sequence that would presage the Lightning’s stormy future.

Washington’s offensive-zone time started with Lars Eller, T.J. Oshie, and Jakub Vrana, and ended with Andre Burakovsky, Chandler Stevenson, and Brett Connolly. The Capitals executed a full-line change while the puck was in the offensive zone. Tampa Bay lost five puck battles and races for the puck. The Lightning also aided the Capitals’ territorial domination with two bad turnovers. One was authored by Victor Hedman; another penned by J.T. Miller. Dmitry Orlov juked Nikita Kucherov so badly that the Lightning sharpshooter actually lost his balance. Oshie slipped behind Hedman and fired a shot at net.

There were echoes of this shift later. At the beginning of the second period, on the Jay Beagle goal to push the lead to 3-0, Dmitry Orlov faked out Steven Stamkos so badly he ceded the middle lane to the net. On the Beagle shot-turned-goal, Anton Stralman did a poor job boxing out Beagle around the crease. After a late surge by the Lightning cut the lead to two, this would prove to be the game-winner.

Boxing out, or lack thereof, was a lingering issue for the Lightning. On Washington’s first goal. Michal Kempny scored despite the Lightning outnumbering the Capitals’ screeners in front of the net. But there was no squeezing or pressure to push them out of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy’s sightline. Vasilevskiy didn’t have a chance on the Kempny attempt. (Boxing out also failed the Lightning on the Lars Eller power-play goal; Ryan McDonagh withered in the paint and lost the battle for the rebound.)

“They [Ovechkin’s Line] are heavy. They can make plays. They [the Point line] just got to be on it. You got to take that time and space away from them. Don’t give them a chance to make a play,” said coach Jon Cooper during a TV timeout in the first period.

Cooper was talking about the Point line, and its ability to match wits with Ovechkin’s crew, and the subtext was clearly the Kempny goal. Ondrej Palat and Dan Girardi had forced Alexander Ovechkin to the outside, but Ovechkin’s drive to the net still was relatively unchallenged. And when the puck ringed along the boards to Capitals defenseman John Carlson, there was no challenge from Tyler Johnson. Carlson would hurl a puck toward the net that would miss the target. But Palat was sleepy at chasing after the puck. And Evgeny Kuznetsov collected it with ease. When Kuznetsov dropped the puck at Kempny’s feet, there was basically no challenge by Palat to close on him, and Kempny had multiple Mississippi’s to let the screeners eclipse the sightline of Vasilevskiy.

Against the Bruins, the Lightning did an outstanding job of getting in shooting lanes. But last night, Point whiffed on the Kempny shot and Alex Killorn failed to get in front of Ovechkin’s rocket. The Capitals can hammer the puck, and they have possibly the greatest shooter ever. It is vital that the Lightning box out or block the shot. They failed on both accounts.

There were not a lot of bright spots, but Stamkos’s performance was encouraging. When the game was competitive, he created multiple rush chances, and his speed and puck-handling even drew a penalty near the conclusion of the first period. He crushed the Kucherov seam pass into the back of the net on the power play. Miller had a shot opportunity from the slot early in the game off a Carlson turnover that was forced by Carlson slapping the puck off Stamkos’s leg. Whether it was a serendipitous meeting of puck and leg, or good positioning, Stamkos was one of the Lightning’s best players yesterday.

For the Lightning, the objectives of this series are twofold: force Washington to dump the puck in rather than carry it, and stay disciplined. The Capitals demonstrated that their cycle is dangerous, but only as a byproduct of the rush. It is entirely unclear whether they can chip-and-chase successfully. The Lightning can compel this with energy and focus in transition defense and their defensemen keeping tighter gaps. If the Capitals’ puck-carriers are under duress, and spitting out turnovers, they will be coerced to dump and retrieve. To parrot Cooper, “Take their time and space away.”

In terms of discipline, the Kucherov penalty that led to the Eller goal was questionable, but the Ovechkin strike was the result of a lazy Tampa Bay penalty. The Capitals are too dangerous with the man advantage, and the Lightning demonstrated that they can keep out of the box against Boston. That same austerity must be applied in this matchup too. If it isn’t, this series could spin out of control.

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