Canucks end skid, double up Caps, 4-2

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In Washington, DC, the Vancouver Canucks ended a three-game skid with a 4-2 win over the Capitals in a Sunday matinee.

Elias Pettersson hit for a pair of goals in the Vancouver win.

His two strikes were in response to an opening goal from Alex Ovechik, giving the Caps a 1-0 lead.

“I know what I’m capable of. Of course, there’s been a very slow start for me,” Pettersson said  “But it’s a good win for us today, and I’m very happy with my two goals today.”

The Canucks improved to 17-18-3.

“I think we deserved better in some of the games,” Pettersson said. “It was like we just have to stay the course. We’ve been playing good hockey. … I think we just came into this game with the right mindset: keep on working, keep playing the game.”

Thatcher Demko made 31 saves in the Canucks win.

“I thought we played a 60-minute game,” Vancouver head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We backed up a little bit a little bit in the third period, but we did one of those bend and not break type situations. But everybody did their job, and when they did their job and the power play is working, you’re going to have some success.”

Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller added single markers for Vancouver.

Tom Wilson also scored for Washington.

“I think in the first half of the game we didn’t go to the front of the net, especially when we moved the puck to our blue line, we just stayed on the perimeter and every shot, he sees it,” Ovechkin said. “In this League, it is hard to score from the blue line if there’s no traffic in front. We are going to watch the video, make some adjustments and move on.”

The Capitals fell to 21-9-9.,

“The first power play [unit], I thought, generated a lot of chances,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “There’s a lot of movement, a lot of chances that came from the first power play, and right at the end we got one.”

Ilya Samsonov made 28 saves in the Caps loss.

“Maybe we’re almost too aggressive up top,” the Capitals’ Carl Hagelin said. “We didn’t really have the sticks in the lanes where we need to have them.”