Caps win their third straight

The Washington Capitals started this shortened season out pretty miserably. No one argues that.  However, the Caps are doing their best to turn it around.  

Eric Fehr scored two goals and Washington scored four total on the night to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning and crawl out of the division cellar.  All three wins have come against Southeast Division rivals.  The win improves the Caps to 5-8-1 and 11 points.  The won also leap frogs the Caps over Florida and into a third place tie with Winnipeg.  

The Caps got on the board early in the first period with another Troy Brouwer goal.  The marker extended Brouwer's goal streak to three games.  Brouwer has now scored four goals over the last three games.  Brouwer's seventh marker of the season was assisted by Mathieu Perreault, who had three helpers on the night, and Nicklas Backstrom.  It also came on the Caps power play.  The lead lasted six minutes when Martin St. Louis knotted The game for Tampa.  Caps out shot the Lightning 12-6 in the first period.

Eric Fehr scored his first of the night, the only tally of the second period, to give the Caps a 2-1 lead at the 5:09 mark of the second period.  Perreault and Joel Ward assisted the goal.  Caps out shot the Lightning 13-12 in the second period.

Fehr scored his second of the night just a little over two minutes into the third period to put the Caps up 3-1.  Perreault added his third helper of the night and John Carlson added an assist.  Five minutes later, at the 7:29 mark of the third period to put the Caps up 4-1.  Assists came from Jeff Schultz and Tomas Kundratek.  

As customary with Tampa, despite a three goal lead, it was far from safe.  Teddy Purcell and Nate Thompson scored after the half way point of the third period to narrow the Caps lead to just 4-3.   Braden Holtby stopped 27 of 30 shots to earn his fourth win of the season. 

The Caps held on in the final two minutes to fend off the Lightning.  

Multi-Point Scorers:

Eric Fehr, 2 goals

Mathieu Perreault, 3 assists