In Washington, DC< the Capitals broke out to a 4-0 lead after a scoreless first half of their game with the New York Rangers.
The Caps then needed to hold on for a 5-4 win.
Tom Wilson scored twice for the Caps and Ilya Samsonov made 16 saves in the win.
TJ Oshie had a single marker for the Caps.
“I feel like there’s been times throughout the year where we’ve gotten ourselves in good position going into the third [and] we maybe take our foot off the gas,” Oshie said. “We’re getting closer to crunch time here, to the end of the year. Protecting leads is going to be very important, so hopefully tonight we can look at some video and learn from tonight and past experiences and grow that part of our game.”
Colin Blackwell scored twice in his first NHL multi-point game.
“Obviously coming off the back-to-back, we wanted to keep it simple,” the Rangers’ Adam Fox said. “Some bounces went their way. They were putting pucks on net, and then by the third we started putting pucks there. It’s a game of inches and just came up a bit short.”
Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov also scored for the Caps.
“I think the positive out of all this is I don’t think we’ve truly played a full 60-minute game this year that we can look there and say first shift to last shift we were solid defensively and all that and we’re still continuing to collect points and get some wins,” the Capitals’ Brenden Dillon said.
Chris Kreider and Alexis Lafreniere tried to rally the Rangers in the third, Kreider’s s goal with just under four minutes left was all the Blueshirts could muster. 
Keith Kinkaid made 17 saves. in the loss.
“Yeah, I just didn’t think we were sharp during that second period,” Quinn said. “We had some power plays that we didn’t get a lot from and then I just thought our inability to shoot pucks and get pucks on net and get some chances.”
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