In Washington, DC, the Capitals lost twice on Sunday. They were defeated, 4-3, by the Toronto Maple Leafs after the skills competition, and they lost ALex Ovechkin to an upper body injury in the third period.
“I just talked to him and I think he’ll be all right,” the Capitals’ T.J. Oshie said. “It’s always scary seeing ‘Big 8’ go down and lay on the ice. He’s a tough guy. If there was anyone I would imagine wouldn’t miss any more time than he needs to, it’d be 8.”
As for the game itself, the Maple Leafs trailed, 1-3, in the third period before rallying to force extra time which solved nothing.
“It was a real gutsy effort for the guys to find a way there,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We didn’t have much today. It seemed like we were playing on fumes most of the night. We were encouraging the guys at 3-1 not to except their fate and keep pushing.”
Alexander Kerfoot was credited with the deciding goal in the skills portion of the evening’s affairs.
Toronto improved to 52-21-7.
Ilya Mikheyev scored for Tortonto.
Erik Kallgren made 33 saves in the Leafs win.
“He was awesome,” the Maple Leafs’ Mark Giordano said. “I thought he was fighting through a lot of screens and they were putting a lot of pucks to the net. He made some huge, huge saves in regulation and obviously in the shootout and overtime he stood tall.”
The Caps got goals from Lars Eller, and Marcus Johansson, they dropped to 44-23-12.
The loser’s point pulled the Caps within one of the third place Pittsburgh Penguins who lost to the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday.
“It’s tough. It’s frustrating. That’s a game we can’t lose,” Caps coach Peter Laviolette said. “We’re doing all the right things and we let it off the hook at the end, so that’s on us.”
After Oshie put the Caps up, 1-0, the Maple Leafs’ Ilya Lyubushkin tied the game, 1-1.
Jason Spezza forced the extra session with the game-tying goal with 58 seconds left in the third period.
Vitek Vanecek made 27 saves in the Caps loss.
“It’s better it happened now than in a week, but it’s a frustrating loss,” Johansson said.
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