Echoes of Olympic glory as Oshie steers Capitals to close victory over Blue Jackets
>> WASHINGTON: TJ Oshie scored the shoot-out winner as the Washington Capitals overcame a stellar performance from Columbus goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to beat the Blue Jackets 2-1 in the NHL on Thursday night.
Despite 44 saves from Bobrovsky, the Capitals reached 104 points and extended their lead atop the Metropolitan Division and NHL standings. Oshie engendered memories of his Sochi Olympic shoot-out performance by again beating Bobrovsky, the goalie he scored on four times in six chances that day.
Dmitry Orlov finally cracked Bobrovsky early in the third period on Washington’s 35th shot of the game. Orlov’s goal tied the score after Seth Jones beat Braden Holtby on a wild scramble early in the third for his first goal since Feb 7.
Holtby had 29 saves in regulation and overtime and three more in the shoot-out to pick up his 38th victory of the season, one shy of Bobrovsky for the league lead.
Kyle Turris and Bobby Ryan scored in the shoot-out to lift the Ottawa Senators 2-1 over the Pittsburgh Penguins at home.
Mike Hoffman scored in regulation for the Senators and Mike Condon finished with 34 saves, including two incredible point-blank stops in overtime to keep the game going.
Nick Bonino had the goal in regulation for the Penguins and Matt Murray stopped 29 shots.
After being outplayed for much of the first two periods, the Senators were much better in the third and tied the score 1-1 on the power play at 9:43 minutes as Hoffman beat Murray over the shoulder with a wrist shot just 14 seconds after Matt Cullen was penalised for holding.
Nikita Kucherov had his third career hat-trick to lead Tampa Bay past the Boston Bruins 6-3, snapping the Lightning’s three-game losing streak.
Jonathan Drouin had a goal and two assists, Brayden Point had a goal and an assist and Anton Stralman also scored to help the Lightning pull three points behind the Bruins for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.
Peter Budaj finished with 28 saves for the Lightning to earn his 29th win of the season. Ondrej Palat had three assists, and Jake Dotchin and Victor Hedman added two each.
Riley Nashy had a goal and an assist for Boston.