Carlson leads Caps to first home win, over Leafs

WASHINGTON >> John Carlson scored and had two assists, giving the defenseman an NHL-high 14 points, and the Washington Capitals beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 Wednesday night for their first home win of the season.

Nicklas Backstrom added a goal and an assist, and Jakub Vrana and Evgeny Kuznetsov also scored for Washington, which lost its first three home games for the first time since October 1983. Two of those defeats came in overtime.

Rookie goaltender Ilya Samsonov made 29 saves in his first home start to earn his third career win. His last stop came as Washington killed off Carl Hagelin’s thirdperiod penalty for hooking.

BLUE JACKETS 3, STARS 2 >> Sonny Milano and Alexander Wennberg scored for the first time this season to lift Columbus over Dallas.

Columbus (3-3-0) won back-to-back games and pulled to .500 with its eighth consecutive victory over the Stars (1-6-1). Joonis Korpisalo turned away 30 shots to net his third win. Ben Bishop made 32 saves for Dallas, who have lost four straight. PENGUINS 3, AVALANCHE 2 >> Brandon Tanev scored a short-handed goal in overtime and Pittsburgh beat Colorado, the first loss of the season for the Avalanche.

Tanev, Pittsburgh’s biggest free-agent pickup in the offseason, scored his first goal with the Penguins at 3:57 of overtime. He swooped into the zone short-handed and threw a shot on goal that went between Philipp Grubauer’s pads. Colorado forward Gabriel Landeskog knocked the puck into the net, giving Pittsburgh its fourth straight win for the first time since an eight-game winning streak last season.

The Penguins’ Sidney Crosby continued a season-long, seven-game point streak, scoring his fourth goal of the season.