Caps Take 4-3 Shootout Decision from Sabres

Back-to-back games are no picnic in the NHL, and they can be poison to winning streaks. But with a 4-3 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night in the District, the Caps have swept a second straight set of back-to-backs, winning both games in the shootout and despite some ongoing penalty killing woes, and stretching their winning streak to five straight.

Washington won both ends of a weekend set of back-to-backs although it permitted multiple power-play goals against in both contests; the Caps won a 6-5 shootout decision over the Hurricanes on Friday night in Carolina, a game in which they gave up three power-play goals and a shorthanded strike as well.
In Saturday's win, Buffalo scored two of its three goals on the power play, and the other one came within one second of going in the books as a power-play goal.

"We've got to continue to get better there," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "We had a stretch where we were doing a better job, and now it's finding its way - multiple ways, different ways - into our net. And that's not a winning recipe for success, to give up three [Friday] night and two and one at the end tonight.
"It's an area we've got to work on here while we've got some practice time this week before we play Pittsburgh [on Wednesday]. We definitely continue to put ourselves in a situation where we have to kill too many penalties. It's going to happen sometimes when you play back-to-back games and you're a little bit fatigued, but it's definitely an area we have to improve in."
For the second straight game, the Caps fell down early. Michal Kempny was boxed for hi-sticking just 41 seconds into the game, putting Buffalo on the game's first power play. Caps goalie Pheonix Copley made stellar stops on Rasmus Dahlin and on a Sam Reinhart deflection of a Dahlin shot, but the rebound of the second of those shots came right to Jack Eichel, who quickly buried it before the Caps goalie could reset. The goal was scored at the exact moment Kempny was released, and it went into the books as an even-strength goal at 2:41, staking the Sabres to an early 1-0 lead.
As they did on Friday night in Carolina, the Caps bounced back to square the score quickly.
Devante Smith-Pelly went behind the Buffalo cage in pursuit of a dump-in on the forecheck, and he took advantage of some apparent miscommunication between Sabres goaltender Carter Hutton and his defensemen. Smith-Pelly took the puck with little resistance and fed Brett Connolly, who had a layup into an empty net for his seventh of the season to tie it up at 1-1 at 3:39.

Midway through the first, the Caps took the lead. Evgeny Kuznetsov won a puck along the left wing wall in Buffalo ice, and he dealt a perfect feed to Jakub Vrana in the high slot. From there, Vrana drove a one-timer past Hutton to make it 2-1 at 9:41.
The Caps turned in a strong first 20 minutes but got stuck in the mud to start the second. For the second straight period, Kempny was boxed in the first minute, this time for a phantom hooking call. Eichel scored a brilliant rush goal on the ensuing power play, beating Copley on the short side high, seemingly putting the puck in a postage-stamp sized area to make it a 2-2 game at 2:25.
Less than five minutes later, Buffalo regained the lead with yet another extra-man tally at the expense of the Caps' beleaguered penalty kill. After assisting on each of Buffalo's first two goals, teenaged phenom Rasmus Dahlin scored from the slot at 7:21 to lift Buffalo to a 3-2 lead. It is the first three-point game of the 18-year-old blueliner's career.
With the two teams playing four skaters to a side in the back half of the middle frame, the Caps pulled even on Alex Ovechkin's seventh goal in a span of three games. Buffalo won a defensive zone draw, but Caps defenseman Dmitry Orlov made a good read, stepping up to pick off a soft breakout pass. Nicklas Backstrom collected the puck and fed Ovechkin in the high slot. From there, the Caps' captain wound up and drilled a clapper past Hutton to make it a 3-3 game at 13:46.
The Caps had the better of the chances in the third, but neither team was able to snap the tie. Buffalo's Sam Reinhart missed an empty net in the final minute of regulation during a late Sabres push, and when overtime failed to produce a winner, the Caps went to the shootout for a second straight night.
Ovechkin wasn't able to become the first player in league history to record hat trick in three straight games, but his shootout goal was the difference maker, and Copley sealed his seventh win of the season and Washington's 20th when he denied Jason Pominville in the skills competition to deliver a four-point weekend and a fifth straight win for the Caps.

"I had pretty good chances today," says Ovechkin. "It would be nice to get another hatty or whatever, but nothing you can do about it."
Saturday's game was certainly entertaining, and the new look Sabres are swift, skilled and fun to watch. They'll be back in town on Friday to face the Caps again in the homestand finale.
"These are big challenges for us," says Sabres coach Phil Housley. "You're playing the Stanley Cup champions and they're on a roll; they're 8-2 in their last 10 and it was a great challenge. Even though we were banged up a little bit, the guys that had an opportunity to get in and earn some minutes played well. I like the balance of our four lines right now, we were able to just roll them."