The Washington Capitals overcame an Ottawa Senators comeback for a 5-4 shootout win to end the homestand at Capital One Arena on a good note after losing three in a row.
A career day for PLD and a shootout win for LT
At 1:41 in the opening period the Capitals got it rolling with Connor McMichael's 22nd goal of the season. Martin Fehervary and Pierre-Luc Dubois had the helpers for their 14th and 36th, respectively, and for PLD it would be the beginning of a three point day. At 3:34 PLD would strike for his 15th goal of the season. McMichael and Rasmus Sandin had the helpers for their 25th and 18th assists.
2-0 would be the score after one as the Caps led in shots 19-11. In the second period at 6:53. Tom Wilson struck for a power play goal with PLD and Dylan Strome providing the assists. It was PLD's 37th and Strome's 42nd.
At 12:18 Shane Pinto put the Senators on the board. 3-1 would be the score after two with the Sens leading in shots 14-12. In the third period, Ottawa would ignite a comeback. Claude Giroux struck at 1:05. Pinto would score again at 8:01 to tie things up.
Fehervary would answer to give the Caps the lead with his third goal of the season. Wilson and Aliaksei Protas set him up for their 20th and 28th assists and the tally came at 12:43.
The Senators would answer to force overtime in the form of a power play goal at 18:52 on a goal from Brady Tkachuk and 4-4 would be the score after 60. Shots were even at nine in the third period. In the overtime Ottawa led in shots 3-1 but nobody would light the lamp in the three on three forcing the shootout.
In the shootout round PLD got stopped while Logan Thompson would stop Drake Batherson on the other end. John Carlson got stopped while Thompson would make the save on Tim Stutzle on the other end. Strome would score the loan goal the Caps needed while Thompson would stop Grioux on the other end to pick up the win. LT improves his record to 26-4-5.
"We'll certainly take the win because we've been reeling a little bit here at home, but it didn't look good out there. Didn't feel good at any point in the game, so we'll look at a few things. We'll take the two points. "Spencer Carbery
For Thompson, his 26 wins is a career high and is ranked tied for fourth in the NHL and trails only Jose Theodore's mark in 2008-09 where he had 32 wins for the most by a goaltender in their first season in franchise history.
The Capitals finish the homestand 2-3-0 but thankfully ended their three game losing streak before heading on the road to face the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. That game will be on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. on TNT, truTV and MAX.