In Washington, DC, Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson scored late in the third period to rally the Capitals from a 4-2 deficit to tie the game with the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night, and force extra time.
“Huge win, huge points,” Ovechkin said. “Obviously, last night we have a chance to come back but we didn’t, and back-to-back play against a young, fast team was a challenge, and it was a good two points.”
The extra session solved nothing, and the Caps took a 5-4 win on T.J. Oshie’s deciding strike on penalties.
Charlie Lindgren made 23 saves in the Washington win.
“It was really good,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. “It was a team effort. We need everybody on that rope and pulling things in our direction. There’s no question our big guys had some bug games.”
The Capitals improved to 33-29-7 with the win, coming after a 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.
Buffalo took a 2-0 lead in the first period on strikes from Ilya Lyubushkin and JJ Peterka.
“We got out of here with one point, and that’s a big, big deal to get a point,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “But very disappointing that we feel that with more focus, which should have been there, we would have had the two.”
Oshie trimmed the deficit to 2-1 on the power play midway through the first period.
“Every game has to kind of be a playoff mentality for us, and there’s no time like playoffs when you’re down goals and able to fuel comebacks,” Oshie said. “There was some desperation out there that you typically see in the postseason, some big goals out of our big guys, some incredible setup shifts before those goals.”
With the first period winding down, Tyson Jost scored to restore the Sabres’ two-goal lead, 3-1.
“We were just playing to our identity, playing the way we know how and being patient, but also playing with quickness and five in the picture,” Jost said. “We like the way we started. Obviously, it stings right now, so it’s a tough one. There’s definitely positives. It’s just tough to kind of find [them] right now.”
In the third period, the Capitals got one back on a marker from Evgeny Kuznetsov for a 3-2 count.
Buffalo seemed to reclaim control of the game at 5:22 when Zemgus Girgensons hot for a goal and 4-2 lead.
“We had the lead for the whole game and then a couple bad mistakes — mine in particular,” the Sabres’ Alex Tuch said. “It’s not the time. It’s unacceptable. I’m not a rookie. I’ve been in this league a couple years now and I know time management. I felt like I let the team down tonight.”
The Sabres fell to 33-28-6 on their fifth loss in seven games.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 35 saves in the Sabres loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.