Capitals beat Penguins in shootout
The Washington Capitals defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in a shootout on Thursday night at Capital One Arena. It snapped the Caps’ two game losing streak and put them back in good positioning for the playoffs if they make it .
Alex Ovechkin scored with 14 minutes left in the first period on a classic shot from the office. It was his 32nd of the season and the 812th of his career, putting him 82 behind Wayne Gretzky. The Caps outshot the Penguins 22-7 in the opening period. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Dmitry Orlov had the assists.
Danton Heinen tied it at 2:37 in the second period. The Pens outshot the Caps 18-12 in the second period.
Marcus Johansson gave he Caps the lead at 5:17 with Nicklas Backstrom and Sonny Milano providing the assists. Bryan Rust tied it at 12:52. It went to overtime with the Pens outshooting the Caps 8-7 in the third while the shots were even at four in the overtime period.
The game would be decided in a shootout.
T.J Oshie got stopped. Rickard Rakell gave the Pens the lead. Evgeny Kuznetsov tied it. Sidney Crosby got stopped. Then Nicklas Backstrom gave the Caps the lead. Evgeni Malkin got stopped by Darcy Kuemper to seal the win.
Peter Laviolette talked about going with Backstrom late in the shootout:
“I just think that the shootout, getting him going, it was a big thing for our team to have him go in and score a goal like that.”
Alex Ovechkin added:
“It was big. It’s always these kind of games against Pittsburgh. It’s fun games to play because there’s a lot of emotion out there. It was actually a great hockey game overall. We started off really good and they came back in the second. It was a tight game.”
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The Caps take on the Toronto Maple Leafs on the road on Sunday evening.