Dylan Strome had a goal and two assists, Alex Ovechkin added his 872nd career goal and the Washington Capitals earned a 7-4 victory against the visiting New York Rangers on Saturday.
Logan Thompson made 29 saves for the Capitals as Ovechkin inched closer to Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 goals.
Chris Kreider, Sam Carrick, Filip Chytil and Mika Zibanejad scored goals for the Rangers, who are 5-16-0 dating back to Nov. 21. Jonathan Quick made 21 saves in the loss.
Kreider gave New York a 1-0 lead at 7:00 of the first period. Thompson left his net for a clearing pass, but Kreider intercepted it above the right circle and easily sent it into the open net.
Strome tied it 1-1 on the power play at 18:46 of the first. Quick stopped Jakob Chychrun’s shot from high in the zone, and Strome was in front to put the rebound past the goalie’s right skate.
Lars Eller deflected Martin Fehervary’s point shot over Quick’s shoulder to put Washington ahead 2-1 at 2:29 of the second period.
Andrew Mangiapane finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play, one-timing a cross-ice feed from Nic Dowd to give the Capitals a 3-1 lead at 10:08 of the middle period.
Carrick intercepted Alex Ovechkin’s pass attempt in the right circle and snapped it stick side on Thompson to narrow the Rangers’ deficit to 3-2 at 16:26 of the second.
Connor McMichael directed a Strome feed from the slot under Quick’s left pad to put Washington ahead 4-2 on the power play at 18:13 of the second period.
On a partial breakaway, Chytil beat Thompson over the glove to cut the New York deficit to 4-3 at 8:32 of the third period.
Ovechkin backhanded a loose puck at the front of the net off a face-off under Quick’s right pad to push it to 5-3 at 10:50 and moved within 22 goals of Gretzky.
Zibanejad narrowed it to 5-4 short side from low in the right circle at 13:04, but Aliaksei Protas made it 6-4 Capitals 56 seconds later when he swept in the rebound of Pierre-Luc Dubois’ shot that hit the crossbar and landed in the crease behind Quick.
Tom Wilson scored an empty-net goal with under a minute remaining.
–Field Level Media
