In Washington, DC, Anders Lee scored for the New York Islanders to tie their game with the Capitals, 3-3, in the third period to force extra time, which settled nothing.
“It was a good response,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “Obviously the place was going crazy for ‘Ovi.’ There’s a lot of energy in the building and we found a way to just concentrate on the task at hand, which is what you want your team to do.”
The Caps won the game in the eighth round of the skills portion of the evening’s events when Anthony Mantha hit for the deciding goal. It was his second goal of the game, the first gave the Caps a 1-0 lead.
Alex Ovechkin scored to pass Jaromir Jagr to move into third place in NHL scoring history.
“I just close my eyes and shoot. I [had] pretty good chances previous games,” Ovechkin said. “Finally, ‘Kuzy’ wins a good face-off right on my stick. To score on a very good friend, ‘Varly,’ it’s nice too.”
The Capitals moved to 33-18-10).
Vitek Vanecek made 29 saves in the Washington win.
The Caps’ Axel Jonsson-Fjallby picked up his first career NHL goal in the win.
Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri also scored for the Isles in regulation.
Justin Schultz also scored for Washington.
“I thought every minute we played in the game we put more of our best foot forward,” Washington coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought overtime was the best. Third period was good enough to get us back into the game and get us the lead. It was unfortunate it closed out with them pulling the empty net and scoring, but in the overtime the guys continued to push.”
The Islanders dropped to 24-24-9.
“We’re competing, we’re in every game. Top to bottom I think we’ve all played pretty solid hockey from the goalies on out,” Lee said. “We’re just trying to continue to put these good games together. When you start getting results and feeling good about yourself and your team game, then things start to come a little bit easier.”
Semyon Varlamov made 29 saves in the New York loss.
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