Devs fall to Caps, Palmieri may be a goner

Kyle Palmieri may have played his last game with the Devils.

The team said the right wing, who will be a free agent at the end of the season, was held out of Sunday’s game for precautionary reasons. Stephen Bartlett, his agent, said the move was made in anticipation of a trade in the coming days or week(s). The trade deadline is April 12. Meanwhile, on the ice, the Capitals came up with two Great 8s to beat the Devils in

Newark.

Alex Ovechkin hit another milestone in his amazing career and the Capitals finished off a rare eight-game sweep of their season series with the Devils with a 5-4 victory.

Ovechkin scored his 265th power-play goal to move into a second-place tie with Brett Hull on the NHL’s all-time list in that category. He is 10 shy of passing all-time leader Dave Andreychuk (274).

Like most of his personal marks, he downplayed it.

“Keep going,” said the 35-year-old Russian, who now has 725 goals, six shy of tying Marcel Dionne for fifth place all time in the NHL. “It is what it is.”

The Great 8 was more impressed with the sweep and the play of goaltender Ilya Samsonov, who stopped 35 shots in a game the Caps were outshot 39-19.

“I think Sammy today was unstoppable,” Ovechkin said. “Obviously he gave us the victory. ”

Caps coach Peter Laviolette said no one was thinking about a sweep at the start of the season.

“You hope to play somebody once and work hard and get one win and through the course of the year at the end of the year there will be a result,” he said. “But they’re a good young team.”