Recap: Ducks Earn Point, But Lose, 3-2 in OT, to Capitals

Despite carrying a 2-0 lead into the third period, the Ducks left Capital One Arena with a single point after a 3-2 overtime defeat against the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Alex Ovechkin scored the game-winning goal at the 1:58 mark of sudden death to lift the Capitals 21-12-1 (43 points) to their sixth consecutive home victory and 11th win in their last 14 games overall, while snapping Anaheim's two-game winning streak.

Derek Grant and Jakob Silfverberg scored for the Ducks, who fell to 14-11-8 (36 points) overall, but have earned points in seven consecutive games (3-0-4, 10 points) and eight of the last nine (4-1-4, 12 points). John Gibson stopped 24-of-27 shots in the OTL, dropping his record to 10-10-4.
Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov scored unanswered goals in the third period for the Caps, who improved to 20-1-1 when scoring three goals or more in a game, while Braden Holtby allowed two goals on 30 shots to improve his record to 19-7-0.
"You can't protect the lead," said Ducks defenseman Hampus Lindholm, who returned to the lineup after missing five consecutive games with an upper-body injury. "You have to play offense, too. We did a bad job at that. Overall, we played a decent game. There are some things we can clean up, but we had some good things, too."
The Ducks opened the scoring at the 16:01 mark of the first period when Grant led a 2-on-1 rush with Dennis Rasmussen. Electing to shoot, Grant beat Holtby far side with a snap shot for his career-high seventh goal of the season, and increased his point streak to three games (3 points 2g/1a). Logan Shaw's assist also gave him a three-game point streak (4 points, 1g/3a), tying a career high established last season from April 2-6, 2017 when he had three points (1g/2a) over that span.

Gibson came up with a highlight reel save in the opening minute of the second period when he robbed Capitals forward Alex Chiasson with a glove save that had the sellout crowd in disbelief. Chiasson walked in all alone on Gibson and made a flurry of dekes that made Gibson push to the right. Despite his momentum carrying him away from Chiasson, Gibson was able to reach across and commit robbery with the glove.

Minutes later, he did it again, this time denying Tom Wilson's redirection in tight after a nice tic-tac-toe sequence from Backstrom and Ovechkin.

The Ducks capitalized on the game's only power play on a bounce that went in their favor at the 7:36 mark of the second period. When Ryan Getzlaf's shot from the blueline caught a piece of Silfverberg, it bounced off the nearside post, hit the back of Holtby's leg and crossed the stripe, much to Holtby's disbelief. The goal gave Silfverberg points in four of his last five games (5 points 3g/2a), while Getzlaf's assist gave him nine points (1g/8a) in his last eight games played, including two points in three games since returning from injury.

Washington got on the board 3:05 into the third period when Backstrom pounced on a rebound left out in front of Gibson after Ovechkin took the initial shot. It was Backstrom's seventh goal and 27th point in 33 games this season.
The Caps tied the game with 12:33 remaining on the clock when Kuznetsov had time to walk in and send a shot inside the nearside post for his 11th goal of the season. At the time, the Caps had all five shots to begin the third period.
Once the game went into overtime, Ovechkin unloaded a blistering shot from the top of the left faceoff dot to give the Caps a 3-2 victory.
"We were neat and tidy with the puck," said Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle, on the team's overall performance tonight. "We kept things to the outside. We didn't take any penalties. They have a very potent power play, and that allowed us to get a two-goal lead. We kind of gave them the goals in the third period. They were two complete giveaways. And, right now, overtime isn't our friend."
Anaheim's six-game road trip continues on Monday when Adam Henrique and Joseph Blandisi return to New Jersey to face their former team.