In Washington, DC, Nicklas Backstrom struck for a hat trick and the Capitals scored four times in the third period to hand the New Jersey Devils a 6-3 loss.
“He’s the backbone of our team,” Capitals goalie Braden Holtby said. “He shows up every game to play a complete game, defensively, offensively, [penalty kill], [power play]. He’s one of the best players in the game right now.”
Andre Burakovsky had a goal in win over Devils – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The Caps improved to 15-7-3 and Holtby made 33 saves to get the win.
Travis Zajac, Nico Hischier and Marcus Johansson scored for New Jersey.
“I think [Holtby] really kept us in the game in the second,” Backstrom said. “We had four breakaways in the second period and he stopped all of them. All credit to [Holtby] there. … They score on those and it’s a different hockey game.”
Tom Wilson, Andre Burakovsky and Alex Ovechkin also scored for Washington.
“I think [our] confidence is good right now. I think everyone is pulling the same way and doing the right things. Different guys are stepping up and scoring goals and making really good plays when some other guys, key guys for us [are] hurt, or like Tom left the game,” Burakovsky said.
New Jersey dropped to 9-11-4 with a road record of 2-10-1.
“We’re challenged by it, that’s for sure,” Devils head coach John Hynes said of his club’s play on the road. “But I think it’s a situation where you have to continue to work at it and look at solutions and look at different ways where you can do a better job and players can do a better job because it’s certainly not good enough.”
[WATCH: All Devils vs. Capitals highlights]
Keith Kincaid made 25 saves in the loss.
“We’re not playing good enough hockey. We have the players in here. We have the talent. We need to find ways to play a more complete game, to play the whole 60 minutes and to find ways to not make these mistakes,” the Devils’ Ben Lovejoy said after another road loss.
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