Rangers’ 4-goal 3rd not enough to overtake Caps
WASHINGTON — The New York Rangers, trailing by four goals in the third period, cut the deficit to one but couldn’t overtake the Capitals, loging 5-4 Sunday afternoon.
Capitals players andcoach Peter Laviolette soundedas if they’d lost after holding onto beat the Rangers.
That’s a good sign for the first-place team in the East Division after tying the TampaBayLightning for the top spot in the NHL.
Washington has won 10 of 11 games to move two points up on the second-place New York Islanders and looks primed for another deep playoff run. Instead of celebrating two goals by Tom Wilson, the 724th of Alex Ovechkin’s career or three points from T.J. Oshie, the Capitals lamented a sloppy third period that turned a blowout into a nail-biter.
This veteran team has grown to appreciate the value of piling up points and
learning lessons along the way, and this game serves as another teachable moment after almost letting what should have been an easy victory slip away.
“If there’s a trend, wewant to address it,” said Wilson, who has five points in four games since returning from a seven-game suspension. “The whole season is definitely just to get ready for the meaningful hockey. You wantto wingames, you want
to get there and you want to build your game and feel good about it going into the playoffs.”
The Capitals have been outscored 40-34 in third periods this season. Theyled 4-0 on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s goal 5:15 into the third before a Rangers scoring flurry made things interesting.
Oshie’s deflection goal with 8:14 left proved crucial, standing upasthegame-winner. Colin Blackwell scored twice on his 28th birthday, No. 1 pick Alexis Lafrenière scored the fifth goal of his rookie season and Chris Kreider scored onthe power play, cutting NewYork’sdeficit to one with 3:52 left.
Ilya Samsonov made a few final saves to give him 16 in his second consecutive victory. But the Capitals had to sweat it out.
“There’s been times throughout the year where we’ve gotten ourselves in good positions going into the third and we maybe take our foot offthegas— not a lot, but just a little bit,” said Oshie, who also had two assists. “We didn’t really stay on the attack, so that’s definitely something that we’ve got to address going forward.”
The good news for the Capitals is they improved to 18-1-0 when leading at the second intermission. And their best players are producing: Ovechkin has 11 goals in 11 games and leads the team with 18; Kuznetsov has 12 points in 10 gamesand Jakub Vrana picked up his first point in five games.