Washington Capitals Blow Door Down Early, Hold Off Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3; Wilson, Ovechkin Score


Photo by Joe Sargent/NHLI via Getty Images

The Washington Capitals defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 4-3 at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday night. Their losing-streak (0-2-2) ended at four games.

Washington, who improved to 18-11-6 overall (.600 points percentage), is 10-4-1 against Metropolitan Division opponents this season. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 33 saves in the victory.

Washington’s Lines

Alex Ovechkin — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Tom Wilson
Aliaksei Protas — Connor McMichael — Anthony Mantha
Hendrix Lapierre — Dylan Strome — Matthew Philipps
Beck Malenstyn — Nic Dowd — Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Martin Fehervary — John Carlson
Rasmus Sandin — Ethan Bear
Joel Edmundson — Nick Jensen

Shepard
Darcy Kuemper

Scratched: D Alexander Alexeyev, D Trevor Van Riemsdyk

Injured: C Nicklas Backstrom (hip), RW Sonny Milano (upper-body), RW T.J. Oshie (lower-body), G Charlie Lindgren (upper-body), LW Max Pacioretty (Achilles)

Carlson played in his 962nd career game, passing Peter Bondra for the fourth-most games played in franchise history.

Pittsburgh’s Lines

Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith — Evgeni Malkin — Bryan Rust
Drew O’Connor — Lars Eller — Valtteri Puustinen
Jansen Harkins — Noel Acciari — Jeff Carter

Marcus Pettersson — Kris Letang
Ryan Graves — Erik Karlsson
John Ludvig — Chad Ruhwedel

Tristan Jarry
Alex Nedeljkovic

Scratched: LW Radim Zohorna, D Pierre-Olivier Joseph

Injured: LW Matt Nieto (undisclosed)

Smith played in his 800th career NHL game.

FIRST PERIOD

Scoring

0:55, 1-0 Washington: Wilson entered the offensive zone and whipped a wrister to the top left corner after Sandin skated up the defensive zone and sent him flying down the wing. The goal marked Wilson’s 11th goal in 40 career games against Pittsburgh, the most goals he has against a single opponent. With the secondary helper, Bear notched his first point as a Capital in his second game.

11:16, 2-0: After Guentzel missed the net and the puck rimmed around the boards, Dowd picked it up at the offensive blueline and fed Malenstyn, who took it behind the net and banked the puck off of Graves and under the cross-bar. Malenstyn has scored in back-to-back games.

13:02, 3-0: Fehervary beat Joseph to the puck down low, worked his way to the top, deked, and ripped a wrister past the blocker of Jarry, who was pulled after allowing three goals on seven shots.

Ruhwedel blasted one past the right pad of Kuemper at 16:33 but the goal was waved off after Crosby was offside earlier in the play.

19:18, 4-0: Ovechkin wristed one from the point past the blocker of a screened Nedeljkovic after getting a cross-ice feed from Sandin. Ovechkin (830 goals, 1507 points in 1382 games) passed Ray Bourque (395 goals, 1,506 points in 1,518 games with the Boston Bruins) for the seventh-most points by a player with one franchise in NHL history. Nedeljkovic is the 172nd different goaltender Ovechkin has scored on in his career. With his second assist of the night, Sandin collected his eight career multi-assist game, including his third with Washington.

19:56: 4-1: Rakell hammered a shot off of the cross-bar and in over Kuemper’s blocker from the top after Karlsson kept the puck in the offensive zone.

Shots: 11-8 Washington

Other Notable Stats: 7-5 Washington in blocked shots, 10-10 in hits, 64% Pittsburgh at the faceoff dot.

Graphs: Natural StatTrick

SECOND PERIOD

Scoring

9:11, 4-2 (PPG): Crosby got a feed at the doorstep by Guentzel from the top, fell down while trying to swat the puck in out of midair, and got a piece of it to tuck it into an open net.

18:54, 4-3: Guentzel tapped one in on the follow-up on his own shot in front after Rakell stole the puck from Sandin behind the net, fed Crosby, and Crosby set up Guentzel. Crosby vaulted into 12th place all-time on the NHL’s point leaders list with his 1540th.

Shots: 22-20 Pittsburgh, including 16-9 in the second

Other Notable Stats: 23-14 Pittsburgh in hits, 14-5 Washington in blocked shots, one-for-two on the power play for Washington and Pittsburgh was one-for-one

THIRD PERIOD

Scoring

N/A

Shots: 36-22 Pittsburgh, including 14-3 in the third

Other Notable Stats: 29-17 Pittsburgh in hits, 22-9 Washington in blocked shots, Pittsburgh did not convert on two power plays in the period

Standings

Washington leaped a point ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning (with three games in hand) for the second wild-card spot, one back of New York Islanders (two) for the first, one behind Philadelphia Flyers (two) for third in Metropolitan in actual points, and four back of Carolina Hurricanes (three) for second.

Next game: Wednesday vs. New Jersey Devils (7:30 PM ET, TNT)

By Harrison Brown





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