Washington's big star Alex Ovetchkin shines with his absence.
The record Russian announced on Tuesday that he is taking a break from the NHL for the time being and is going home to Moscow due to family reasons.
The next day came the news that his father had died.
Two games without goal-scoring Ovetchkin also resulted in two losses for Washington - a total of three in a row.
Visiting Florida started the night's meeting with a goal by Gustav Forsling in the first period.
Only at the end of the second did the home team's first goal come through Dylan Strome and with an assist from Erik Gustafsson.
The goal cut the deficit to 3-1 for Washington, but it wasn't long before Florida was there again.
At the last period break, the score was 4–1 to the guests.
The third period started better for Washington.
First a goal by Nicklas Bäckström and then one by Jevgenij Kuznetsov, both after assists from Gustafsson who took three points in the match.
The score was 4-3 to the visitors with only a few minutes left in the game.
But then Florida pulled away again and scored two more pucks in just over a minute.
The final score is written 6–3 to Florida.