"I thought it was under my glove," says Holtby. "I think it was Lars' [Eller's] stick that was underneath my glove to stop that, but I thought [Foegele] kind of kicked my glove in order to spin me, to open up a little where it went in. I'm not sure what happened there."
The Caps had a glorious chance to pull within one in the first minute of the third, but T.J. Oshie hit the post in a 1-on-1 situation with Mrazek. Soon after, Washington went on a power play and quickly did close to within a goal.
In neutral ice, Nicklas Backstrom bumped the puck for Evgeny Kuznetsov, enabling him to carry into Carolina ice with speed and driving the center lane. Kuznetsov neatly tucked the puck through Mrazek's five-hole to make it a 4-3 game exactly two minutes into the third period.
But 80 seconds later, the Canes were once again up by a pair when Martin Necas scored to make it a 5-3 game.
"We start to make a push to get back in it," says Reirden, "but our shifts after goals cost us tonight. We get a little bit of momentum, and we give it right back. It was a little bit of a seesaw game like that."
With a little over four minutes left, Reirden waved Holtby to the bench for an extra attacker. But the Caps turned the puck over in neutral ice, leaving an easy empty-net goal for Andrei Svechnikov at 15:58 of the third, making it a 6-3 contest.
With 1:13 remaining, Radko Gudas wound up and blasted a shot past Mrazek from center point after the Caps won an offensive-zone draw, accounting for the 6-4 final score.
"Obviously it's huge," says Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour of his team's victory that halted a three-game slide. "We've lost three in a row, so we needed a win desperately. Washington has got a huge cushion. We needed to be the desperate team, and we needed to be the team that needed the win. I'm just happy that we got it."