Braden Holtby (35 saves) leads Washington Capitals

TAMPA, Fla. --- The Washington Capitals bounced back from a rare loss, jumping out early on the Tampa Bay Lightning and holding on for a 2-1 victory Saturday at Amalie Arena.

Goaltender Braden Holtby stopped 35 Tampa Bay shots as Washington (20-6-2) beat the Lightning (14-13-3) for the second time in 15 days. What ended up the winning goal was a highlight-reel trick of a shot, with Evgeny Kuznetsov fooling Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop by looping around the net but scoring from behind him inside the near post in the second period.

"You can't say enough about (Holtby). I feel like a broken record, talking about him all the time, but he performs every single night," Capitals defenseman John Carlson said. "It's great that he's on our team."

Tampa Bay saw one top scoring threat lost in warmups when Tyler Johnson aggravated an undisclosed injury and was a late scratch and linemate Ondrej Palat went down with an injury in the first three minutes, leaving the Lightning with only nine forwards for the rest of the game.

"I'm speechless. We can't find a way to get guys back (healthy)," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.

Tampa Bay missed on its first three power plays, but when the Lightning got a fourth one a minute later in the third, they converted with red-hot right wing Nikita Kucherov firing a shot to the top right corner past Capitals goalie Braden Holtby with 11:55 left.

Tampa Bay outshot Washington 15-1 in the third period.

The Lightning pulled Bishop for the final minute, but Holtby held on for one more save to seal the victory.

"It's really concerning because it's not October," said Cooper of his team's rough start after reaching the Stanley Cup finals last season. "Christmas is right around the corner, and we're looking at the dog days of January and February and we're going the wrong way in the standings."

The Capitals built a 2-0 lead after two periods and started early as right wing Jay Beagle, behind and to the right of Bishop, poked a shot into the goal 2:09 into the game. It was his fourth goal of the season.

"We had a tough one at Florida, getting scored on the first shift, and we got one back on the first shift tonight," Beagle said. "To get that first one was obviously key. We were buzzing, we were playing in their end, and that's fun hockey."

The Lightning outshot the Capitals 21-19 in the first two periods, but Washington was able to extend its lead midway through the second on a nifty move by Kuznetsov. He was curling around the goal to Bishop's left and as Bishop started shifting to the right, Kuznetsov pulled the puck back as he moved behind the net and snuck it around the near post for a 2-0 lead.

The goal was Kuznetsov's ninth of the season, and defenseman John Carlson got his 17th assist on the play.

Each team went 0-for-2 on power plays in the first two periods.

Washington bounced back nicely after a 4-1 loss at the Panthers on Thursday. The Capitals had scored points in eight straight before that, including seven wins. Tampa Bay had won three of four games coming into Saturday.

NOTES: Lightning LW Jonathan Drouin (lower-body injury) was a late scratch. RW Erik Condra was out with a lower-body injury, and C Cedric Paquette was sidelined out with an upper-body injury. ... Washington had three healthy scratches -- C Michael Latta, D Aaron Ness and RW Chris Brown. ... The Lightning open a three-game road trip on Monday at the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Capitals finish a three-game road trip on Monday at the Pittsburgh Penguins before returning home to play host to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday. ... The two teams will meet again on Friday in Washington.