Caps Win Wild One in Ottawa, 7-5

Washington winger T.J. Oshie and Ottawa forward Drake Batherson had dueling hat tricks while Caps Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of goals in a barnburner of a game on Monday night in Ottawa. When all the skate shavings settled, the Caps were 7-5 victors, improving to 4-0-2 on the season.

Washington yielded the game's first goal in the third minute of the contest, but rallied for four unanswered in the first period, chasing Ottawa starter Anton Forsberg to the bench in the process. In the second, the Caps' lead evaporated when the Sens scored three times in less than five minutes, but Washington rallied to restore it and got out of Ottawa with two points.
"A really good start, and I thought a really good response when it was 4-4," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "It was a big goal at the end of the second period by T.J. Oshie, and we found a way to put it away. It was not your typical game, but we still found a way to win it."
Batherson started the scoring for Ottawa, firing a shot past Ilya Samsonov on the short side from the right half-wall at 2:27 of the first.
Batherson's goal came off a Caps turnover deep in Washington territory, and the Sens returned the favor just seconds after the first television timeout of the first frame. Ottawa won a defensive zone draw, but when Josh Brown lost the handle near the goal line, Trevor van Riemsdyk quickly put it on Oshie's tape, and he put it in the back of the net just as quickly, tying the game at 6:26. The goal came just six seconds after the face-off loss.

Shortly after the midpoint of the first, Oshie struck again to give the Caps a lead. Once again, the Caps struck soon after losing a face-off, but this time the draw was in their end of the ice. Once again it was Josh Brown losing control of the puck, this time at the Washington line. The Caps broke out on a 3-on-2, with Anthony Mantha feeding Oshie for the goal at 11:10, just a dozen seconds after the draw in Washington territory. Rookie Caps center Connor McMichael collected the secondary helper, his first NHL point.
Washington went up 3-1 on a Nick Jensen goal at 13:37. After taking a feed from partner Dmitry Orlov, Jensen crept to the top of the right circle and put a well-placed wrist shot behind Forsberg, his second of the season.
Just over two minutes later, Forsberg's night came to an end. Lars Eller found John Carlson with a cross-ice feed, and Carlson shimmied to shake off a defender before coolly picking the far corner and putting it there at 15:43. Filip Gustavsson came on in relief for Ottawa at that point.
Washington put a lot of rubber on the Ottawa net in the first, but the Caps didn't look strong defensively in the first 20 minutes. The Sens really got rolling in the second, scoring three goals in less than five minutes to erase Washington's lead, and evening the score at 4-4.
First, Josh Norris scored a rush goal, taking a fine feed from Artem Zub and cranking a one-timer past Samsonov from the bottom of the right circle at 5:57. Chris Tierney made it 4-3 on an Ottawa power play at 9:37, scoring from the top of the paint to bring the home team within one. And at 11:16, Batherson was parked in front when Carlson's clearing bid bounded off Brady Tkachuk and came right to him; he buried it for his second of the night.
While the Sens were pouring those three pucks into the Washington net, they were also holding the Caps without a shot on net for more than nine minutes.
But late in the period, the Caps battled back to restore and then extend their lead. First, Alex Ovechkin blocked a Nikita Zaitsev shot, creating a breakaway for himself in the process. He beat Gustavsson while holding his broken stick together; he busted the twig blocking the Zaitsev shot.

"Yeah my stick was broken," says Ovechkin. "I didn't have a chance to change it, so I just got a lucky one. I'll take it."
In the waning seconds of the second, the Caps lost a draw in Ottawa ice, but McMichael and Oshie combined to shake the puck loose from Nick Holden behind the Ottawa net. Oshie collected it, curled around the cage and scored a wraparound goal to fill his hat trick with 7.3 seconds remaining. This time, 14 seconds elapsed between the lost draw and the subsequent red light.
"I thought he was really good tonight," says Laviolette of Oshie. "He worked really hard, he turned over a lot of pucks. I thought his line was good. But you could notice Oshie; he was moving and he was making a difference just by the forecheck and turning things over."
Oshie's third goal enabled the Caps to enter the third with some breathing room, and they'd need it. Batherson struck for his third of the night at 6:32 of the third, tipping a Norris shot home to make it 6-5.

Near the midpoint of the third, the Caps went on their only power play of the evening. They couldn't convert, but nine seconds later Ovechkin made it 7-5 with a shot from the slot, converting a sublime Tom Wilson feed through traffic.
The Caps held off the Sens' late push - killing off a late Ottawa power play - to claim their second road win in as many games.