The Washington Capitals needed a win badly and they got it with a 3-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers to sweep the season series.
The first period was scoreless but as radio voice John Walton said on the broadcast, it was the best period the Caps played all season. They got some good looks and outshot the Oilers 22-12. It was the most shots they got in a single period this season, per Capitals PR.
Brett Kulak put the Oilers up 1-0 at 1:44. The Caps tied it at 7:25 as Sonny Milano chipped the puck to Lars Eller who used his puck handling skills to score his fourth goal of the season.
The Oilers answered at 15:25 on a short handed breakaway goal from Connor McDavid. The Caps responded at 16:55 to tie the game back up. Evgeny Kuznetsov fed it to Dylan Strome behind the net who found T.J. Oshie up front for his fourth goal of the season.
2-2 was the score after two as the Caps outshot the Oilers 19-7.
In the third the Caps were outshot 11-9 but led in overall shots 50-30. They took the lead at 7:13 as Nick Jensen found Aliaksei Protas for a breakaway attempt.
Instead of forcing the shot as it looked like he got tripped up, he fed a backhanded pass to Nic Dowd for his fourth goal of the season. Charlie Lindgren made 28 saves to seal the win.
Capitals Head Coach Peter Laviolette praised Protas after the game, “It might have been Pro’s best game as a Washington Capital.”
Lars Eller praised the team effort Monday night, “We gave everything we had and it was enough today.”
Protas talked about the game winning goal which he assisted for, “No, he (Dowd) wasn’t calling for that, but breakaway, I don’t need that, I will just drop it to Nic. I saw him and knew he was coming and knew he was going to help me out there.”
The Caps conclude their six game road trip on Wednesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.