Capitals come back against Blues but fall short in shootout

It looked ugly for the first 20 minutes but in the final 40 minutes the Washington Capitals played desperate hockey against the St. Louis Blues. They forced overtime but fell short in the shootout round in a 5-4 defeat.

In the first period it was all Blues. Brayden Schenn scored at 4:56. Pavel Buchnevich doubled the lead at 7:10. Torey Krug scored on the power play at 11:49. 3-0 was the score after one as the Caps outshot the Blues 9-7.

In the second period the Caps outshot the blues 18-9 and began to mount a comeback. Dylan Strome set up Alex Ovechkin in front of the net to score his ninth goal of the season. It came at 15:12

John Carlson, in his 900th career game, sent a blast in for his fourth goal of the season while the Caps were shorthanded at 17:36. Nic Dowd and Nick Jensen had the helpers.

Ryan O’Reilly got a goal back for the Blues at 18:02 and 4-2 was the score after two periods.

With the Caps on the power play late in the third period, Carlson scored his second goal of the game at 15:45. Strome and Ovechkin had the assists. It was his fifth goal fo the season

Conor Sheary would tie it at 16:57 for his seventh goal of the season. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ovechkin had the assists. The Caps outshot the Blues 22-3 in the third period in the comeback effort.

That would force overtime where nobody would score and the Caps were outshot 5-2. But they outshot the Blues 51-24 overall. The game would head to a shootout.

Charlie Lindgren made the save on Jordan Kyrou. Evgeny Kuznetsov scored on the other end. Vladimir Tatrasenko missed. Ovechkin got stopped. O’Reilly scored to tie it up.

Carlson got stopped as did Schenn. So did Anthony Mantha. Robert Thomas missed. Dylan Strome got stopped. Buchnevich gave the Blues the lead and Sheary got stopped.