In Washington, DC, Wednesday night, the Capitals built a 3-0 lead and then held off the Chicago Blackhawks for a 4-2 win.
Braden Holtby made 37 saves to get the victory as the Caps improved to 11-7-3.
“I thought tonight [Holtby] was really solid,” Capitals coach Todd Reirden said. “We gave up a few odd-man chances and I thought he made some big saves at critical times.”
Tom Wilson, Andre Burakovsky and Michal Kempny scored to give the Caps the 3-0 lead.
“Obviously, it was a shorter summer for us and a shorter time to prepare ourselves for the season,” Burakovksy said. “Just to get back after a year that we had, I think it’s tough to get in and get going right away. So we’re building our game slowly, and tonight I think we did exactly what we wanted.”
Brandon Saad and Erik Gustafsson scored for the Blackhawks.
Chicago dropped to 8-9-5 and they are 2-7-3 in their 12 games.
“A few things we would like to have back certainly,” Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. “Giving a very skilled team some excellent chances and they put them in the back of our net. They could have had a couple more, too. [Crawford] made some saves.”
Devante Smith-Pelly scored early in the third to give the Caps the 4-2 lead.
“Obviously don’t want to give up a goal like that,” Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith said. “It would have been nice to keep it 3-2 and add some more pressure on them.”
[WATCH: All Blackhawks vs. Capitals highlights]
Corey Crawford made 23 saves in the loss.
“We’re disappointed. We could have got some points today and we didn’t. But we’re good enough. We have a good enough team. We’ve just got to tighten up a little bit. These are things we can control and let’s have the same effort and we’ll be alright,” Colliton said.
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