Caps stop Panthers in OT

In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers could not hold leads of 3-1 or 4-3 and lost to the visiting Washington Capitals, 5-4, in extra time.

Tom Wilson struck for his second goal of the game with just 17 seconds gone in the extra session for the win.

Braden Holtby had denied a break just six seconds ahead of the winner.

“[Holtby] made an amazing save,” Wilson said. “Then I realized I had to get going the other way, we had a chance, we had an odd-man rush. That’s how 3-on-3 works. Your guy comes up big for you and then you can try to capitalize at the other end.”

Holtby made 32 saves in the win.

Aleksander Barkov and Evgenii Dadonov had multi-point nights with a goal and assist each.

“We find a way to get points almost every game and we find a way to win games,” Barkov said. “Of course today we couldn’t get it done, but the best thing is that we still can get a lot better and we all know it. But we’re all confident. We know how to play the right way and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

Frank Vatrano and Brett Connolly also scored for the Panthers.

“Yeah, it was nice,” Connolly said. “It would have been nice to win. Obviously it’s always nice to score goals. There’s no hard feelings for me over there. It was obviously just trying to help my team win tonight and I was fortunate to get one.”

Alex Ovechkin also had two goals and John Carlson added a single marker in the win.

“I can talk a lot about Tom Wilson,” Capitals coach Todd Reirden said. “Tonight’s game summed it up for me. He lays down, blocks a shot at the end of the second and they end up scoring. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to come back and play in the third, and he comes back, physical right away in the beginning of the third, and ends up scoring the goal to get us tied up at the time and eventually scores the winner. That’s how hockey should work.

“When you want to pay the price and you want to play the game the right way, then things seem to go your way, so I’m not surprised at all to see Tom get rewarded like that.”

[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Panthers highlights]

Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves in the loss.

“If we’re playing our best we can play against any team,” Connolly said. “We’ve just got to keep getting better every day and we’ll take it from there, but overall it’s been 15 games now, if we would start the season, we would take this record. We would take it the way we’re playing. I think guys have a lot of be proud of for the first 15 games.”