In Washington, DC, the Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin scored twice in the third period to knot their match with the Ottawa Senators at 2-2, and force extra time on Saturday.
Nicklas Backstrom struck for the game-winner in the extra session in a 3-2 win.
“We got a little lucky there, I think. Hit my shin pads, otherwise it probably would have been a 3-on-2 the other way,” Backstrom said. “The puck was bouncing a little bit, so I was just trying to make it flat. Then I got too close to shoot, I thought. You’ve got to trust a good old backhand sometime.”
The Capitals improved to 23-10-9.
“I thought we just stayed with the game the entire game regardless of the score,” Washington head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We thought if we could get one, then one might lead to two and then we’ll figure out how to get a third. Defensively, I thought we were good all night. Offensively, I thought we got better as the game went on.”
Vitek Vanecek made 20 saves in the Washington victory.
“Give them credit, but at the same point we left Ovechkin open in the slot twice and he isn’t going to miss those,” Ottawa head coach D.J. Smith said. “And then in overtime it’s a tough turnover.”
Thomas Chabot and Zach Sanford were the Ottawa strikers.
“You get a 2-0 (lead) going into the third. You know they’re coming with a push,” Smith said. “We sat back into our zone. We’ve got to keep pucks going north, and it ends up, after a long shift mind you, ‘Ovi’ finds a way to score.”
The Senators fell to 11-20-3.
“I think we had a good first two periods, and just with a skilled team like that you can’t have any breaks and let off the gas,” Ottawa’s Alex Formenton said. “But there’s a lot of good things that we did in that game.”
Matt Murray made 30 saves in the Sens loss.
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