Wilson goal in third period gives Capitals win against Sabres

WASHINGTON -- Braden Holtby made 36 saves, and Tom Wilson scored with seven minutes left in the third period to give the Washington Capitals a 2-1 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Capital One Arena on Friday.

Evgeny Kuznetsov took the puck away from goalie Carter Hutton and passed to Wilson, who scored his 10th goal of the season.
"I was waiting for Kuzy to get me an open net. It seemed like it's been a little bit overdue here," Wilson said. "Usually they come pretty often."
WATCH: [All Sabres vs. Capitals highlights]
Chandler Stephenson scored a shorthanded goal in the second period for Washington (21-10-3), which killed a penalty in the final two minutes.
"We talked about it before the game, specialty teams was going to be an important part," Sabres coach Phil Housley said. "It's unfortunate we give up that shorty and we still get a power play at the end there. We had a lot of good looks but we just couldn't find the net."

Johan Larsson scored, and Hutton made 22 saves for Buffalo (20-11-5).
Larsson tied it 1-1 when he backhanded Tage Thompson's deflected shot at 9:01 of the third period.
"We had a lot of good opportunities, a lot of pucks on net," Larsson said. "I think [Thompson] had two shots and the second one went on to me. So I had an open net."
Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin did not score for a second straight game; he needs one goal to join Mike Gartner as the only players to begin an NHL career with 14 straight 30-goal seasons.
Washington won for the first time this season when Ovechkin failed to get a point (eight games).
Sabres forward Sam Reinhart had his NHL career-high 11-game point streak end. Linemates Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner each had a seven-game point streak end.

Stephenson gave Washington a 1-0 lead at 2:50 of the second period. Nic Dowd lofted the puck over the defense, and Stephenson got to it first to score his third goal of the season.
"That was a good play by [Dowd]," Stephenson said. "Just saw he had some time, so just took off and hoping he'd throw it to an area, which he did."
The Capitals thought they had a two-goal lead when Hutton covered Kuznetsov's shot and the puck slid across the goal line, but the referee had blown the play dead.
Late in the period, Holtby skated toward the blue line, slid and swiped a loose puck to prevent a breakaway by Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. Holtby then got his stick on the follow-up attempt by Conor Sheary.
"I thought I could get there," Holtby said. "I was thinking I'd kind of have to get down to try and seal the ice and get it out of the blue line there. Once I kind of went to go down, he kind of stopped skating, which was strange. I didn't really see the second guy coming, so after that you just try and do whatever you can to keep it up."

They said it

"We played well. Obviously, that's a good hockey team. I thought Holtby played well and we only get one and they get a shorthanded goal. That's obviously tough to take, frustrating, but I thought we have a lot to take away and we've got a big game tomorrow." -- Sabres goalie Carter Hutton
"Found a way to win and that's what good teams do. We dealt with some adversity on a non-goal call and some penalty kills at the end, 6-on-4. I like the adversity for our team and the fact that we were able to come out of here with two points." -- Capitals coach Todd Reirden

Need to know

Buffalo has lost its past seven visits to Washington (0-5-2). ... Dowd has seven of his nine assists this season in his past nine games.

What's next

Sabres: Host the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, FS-W, NHL.TV)
Capitals: At the Ottawa Senators on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN360, CITY, TVAS, NBCSWA+, NHL.TV)