The Washington Capitals played hard and played well but just couldn’t score the dagger in overtime as they fell 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers.
The first period was scoreless as Ilya Samsonov was tested early. He stopped all 20 shots he faced while the Caps only put up nine shots. Credit to Sammy for keeping the Caps in the game the whole night against a good offensive team like the Oilers. 20 shots was the most shots the Caps allowed in the opening period all season.
In the second the Caps outshot the Oilers 15-9. At 2:17 the Caps took the lead on a spin o rama backhanded goal from Nicklas Backstrom. It was assisted by Anthony Mantha and T.J. Oshie.
The Oilers answered with two straight goals. First at 12:01 on the power play from Kiler Yamamoto and then Cody Ceci at 18:12. In the third the Caps were outshot 10-7 but were able to answer when adversity struck them to at least secure a point.
On the power play at 6:13 the Caps evened things up. Oshie buried Backstrom’s pass and there it was, Backstrom’s 1,000th career point. He joins Alex Ovechkin as the only other Capital to reach 1,000 points all with the franchise. John Carlson had the secondary assist.
Backstrom told the media after the game:
"“Obviously it means a lot, and it’s a big milestone. I’m very happy that I reached it today. Obviously, we would have liked two points, but Osh tied it up there at the end, which gave us at least one point. We’ll take that and move on.”"
Brad Malone gave the Oilers the lead right back at 10:31. Then with two seconds left Oshie tied it right back up. That goal was assisted by Carlson and Evgeny Kuznetsov. It was Oshie’s second goal of the night and eighth goal of the season.
Shots were even at one apiece in overtime but Connor McDavid would win it for the Oilers at 3:27. The Caps will look to bounce back in the final game of their Canada trip against the Vancouver Canucks.