Kuznetsov's game-winner came off a great defensive play by Chandler Stephenson, who got on his horse and made a diving backcheck on Little, knocking the puck off the Winnipeg pivot's stick as he was trying to convert a two-on-one.
Kuznetsov collected and tamed a bouncing puck in his own end, chipped it past Byfuglien and turned on the Jets. He was out of reach before he even reached the red line; Jets forward Blake Wheeler in futile pursuit and well beyond a stick's length away. From between the hash marks, Kuznetsov snapped a shot to the shelf on the stick side to give the Caps the two points.
Monday's win enabled the Caps to stack up consecutive wins over playoff caliber teams for the first time in more than a month, since Washington swept a home-and-home set from Columbus on Feb. 6-9.
"It was a pretty neat game in the sense that you've got Alex and Laine," says Trotz, "who are two of the purest shooters you're going to find on the planet going head-to-head. And Ovi is still king; he is still the king.