The Washington Capitals played good much of the game on Tuesday night and built a 4-1 lead on the New Jersey Devils before the road team went on a comeback to force overtime. In the extra session, Jakub Vrana would save the night, giving Washington the win to keep the momentum going.
The Caps got a power play opportunity late in the first period and T.J. Oshie deflected in a Justin Schultz shot for his sixth goal of the season. Nicklas Backstrom had the secondary assist and the goal came at 17:22.
The Caps would lead the Devils 1-0 after one and outshot them 11-9.
The Caps doubled their lead thanks to some excellent puck movement capped off with a snipe by Vrana at 7:42. John Carlson and Backstrom had the helpers.
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The Caps made it 3-0 at 10:36 when Evgeny Kuznetsov found Daniel Sprong. Sprong took it down ice for a two on one with Alex Ovechkin and ripped the shot in for his fourth goal of the season.
The Devils got on the board with a goal at 12:44 from Janne Kuokkanen. The Caps would answer at 15:03 with a shot from Dmitry Orlov from the right face off circle for his third goal of the season. It was the second straight game Orlov scored. Richard Panik had the assist.
4-1 was the score after 40 with the Caps leading in shots 13-6 in the second period.
The third period saw the Devils mount a comeback with three unanswered goals. First it was Miles Wood at 5:47. Then it was Yegor Sharangovich at 10:17 to make it a one goal deficit. The Devils tied it at 12:20 with a goal from Damon Severson.
Oshie talked about the third period woes via Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic:
"“We’ve had problems w/ this in the past. There has to be a maturity there that starts w/ the veteran players that filters all the way down to the young guys that when we get up in games…that that’s our standard. We can’t think things are going to be easy.”"
4-4 was the score after 60 and if there were fans in the building they would’ve been stunned. The Devils outshot the Caps 16-5 in the third period.
Vrana would save the night with a goal 90 seconds into the overtime. That would be the only shot of the extra session and the snipe was Vrana’s 10th goal of the season. Evgeny Kuznetsov had the assist.
The Caps will reconvene with the Flyers on Thursday night in the second of three games with them this week after defeating them Sunday night.