COLUMBUS, Ohio – Braden Holtby made 35 saves to help Washington to a 3-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets Sunday night.
For the Jackets it was their third straight loss as they now trail the Pittsburgh Penguins 
by one point for the second spot in the Metropolitan Division.
Andre Burakovsky , TJ Oshie and Matt Niskanen scored for Washington to build a 3-0 lead all in the second period.
“Home ice throughout the [Stanley Cup Playoffs] is important,” Oshie said. “Whoever we match up with, it’s going to be a battle but we want to finish in that top spot and we want to finish playing well.”
Jack Johnson struck to stop the Washington run and Kyle Quincey scored late in the third to get the Jackets within one.
“The first period they played as a team that played lousy their last game. Some of it was self-inflicted by us with turnovers. The second period, we created 10 scoring chances. We had a lot of odd-man rushes. We just couldn’t score,” Columbus head coach John Tortorella said of his team’s efforts over the game.
WATCH: All Capitals vs. Blue Jackets highlights
Sergei Bobrovsky made 27 saves in taking the loss.
“It’s great to have those games in the regular season because that’s what we’re going to face in the playoffs,” Bobrovsky said.
After being pushed around for most of the first two periods of the game, the Jackets finally found some legs in the third period.
“The first half of the game we allowed them to dictate their game. For the second half we dictated ours. That’s something we talked about before the third period, just play our game. When we started taking it to them they didn’t have an answer,” Columbus’ Nick Foligno said.
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