In Washington, DC, Vitek Vaneck made 25 saves for the Capitals in a 5-3 win over the visiting Buffalo Sabres, on Monday night.
Alex Ovechkin scored once for the Capitals.
“I just take it day by day,” Ovechkin said. “You know it’s nice to be in that company. It’s pretty big numbers, so just move on. Obviously it’s nice to be tied, but I still have a couple games left.”
Washington snapped an 0-2-1 skid and moved to 6-2-4.
Tom Wilson (two goals) and Connor McMichael gave the Caps a 2-0 lead in the first period.
“Every chance that [Capitals coach Peter Laviolette] gives me, I’m growing more and more, and I feel a lot more comfortable with the puck and am able to make more plays,” McMichael said. “So, I’m fortunate that ‘Lavy’ is using me in a lot more different situations and I’m looking to thrive off that.”
Cody Eakin, Anders Bjork, and Colin Miller were the Sabres’ strikers.
“I liked the fight all the way through to the end. We have to compete,” Buffalo head coach Don Granato said. “I think there were opportunities in the game that were created and generated and it’s the way we need to play. We need to play aggressive.”
Buffalo is 0-4-1 in their last five games.
“I think we’ve got to remain confident,” Bjork said. “When we’re skating and attacking hard and using our speed, we can stick with any team in this league and create lots of chances.”
Buffalo dropped to 5-5-2.
“There’s a lot of good things I think that we did,” Eakin said. “A lot of things to improve, but for the most part we competed pretty darn hard and gave them a lot to handle. There were times when we were pretty dominant in their zone, as they were in the first (period) against us.”
John Carlson also scored for the Caps.
“I think we’ve been good, but the last maybe couple games we wanted to be better,” Wilson said. “I think we wanted to really step up for the team tonight and lead by example and drive the bus a little bit. When ‘O’ and ‘Kuzy’ are playing like they are, I just try and give them the puck and it’s been clicking pretty well.”
Dustin Tokarski made 25 saves in the Buffalo loss.
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