Blackhawks tie game in third, defeat Capitals in shootout for rare win

WASHINGTON-- Seth Jones and Alex DeBrincat each had a goal and an assist for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 4-3 shootout win against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Thursday.

Dominik Kubalik scored for Chicago (8-12-2), which had not won at Washington in almost 16 years. Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves, and Patrick Kane scored the only goal in the shootout.
"They tilted the ice here and there, but we stuck to our game plan," Blackhawks coach Derek King said. "We just kind of played as simple as we could. We still made some mistakes where I would've liked to see pucks go in a little deeper, but we stayed in the fight. It was a challenge for us and they rose to the occasion."

Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway each had a goal and an assist for Washington (14-4-6), which had won eight straight home games against Chicago since a 4-3 overtime loss on Jan. 10, 2006. Vitek Vanecek made 25 saves.
Evgeny Kuznetsov and Daniel Sprong each hit the post in the shootout before Kane scored.
"Just a little bit unlucky," Kuznetsov said. "It's kind of lottery always, right? We knew that Kane [is] going to have a pretty good chance to score, so I had to at least score one, but it didn't work out, so I guess we'll have to practice, get better."
Alex Ovechkin did not score and remained one goal shy of the NHL power-play record and No. 750 in his NHL career.
Jones tied it 3-3 with a wrist shot from the high slot with 8:04 remaining in the third period off a pass from Josiah Slavin, who made his NHL debut.
"I didn't really have much going to the net, so I thought I'd peel back, and as soon as I did, I saw him jumping up in the play and he was wide open. So it was an easy pass to make," the 22-year-old forward said.
DeBrincat gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at 19:00 of the first period when he received a pass from Kane on a 2-on-1.
"I thought we did a great job of kind of taking the crowd out of it in the first, sticking to our game, keeping it low-eventful," Jones said. "That's just giving ourselves a chance. [Fleury] made big saves."

Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy left after a hit by Ovechkin early in the second period. King did not have an update on Murphy after the game.
"I thought we got into it in the second period. 'O's' hit got us going," Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. "We were looking for physicality, so we got that going and started putting pucks behind them and able to start playing a better game in the second period."
The Capitals tied it 1-1 at 1:10 of the second period. Dowd passed to Garnet Hathaway, went to the net and redirected a pass from Carl Hagelin.
Kubalik made it 2-1 when he skated into the slot and scored off a pass from DeBrincat on a power play at 12:57. Chicago had gone six games without a power-play goal (0-for-13).
Kuznetsov tied it 2-2 at 17:31 when he swept a loose puck across the goal line.
The Capitals took a 3-2 lead 57 seconds into the third period. Dowd controlled the puck in the defensive zone and passed up ice to Hathaway, who came out of the penalty box and scored on a breakaway.
Jones tied it 11 minutes later.
"Up in our building, less than 10 minutes to go, don't allow Grade A's," Dowd said. "We don't need to score another goal. 'Lavi's' preaching that all the time. We're up by one, we're in a great spot, we just have to continue to learn."
NOTES: Slavin played 10:40. The seventh-round pick (No. 193) in the 2018 NHL Draft had three shots on goal and split two face-offs. ... Jones blocked six shots. ... Ovechkin has a point in six of his past seven games (12 points; seven goals, five assists). ... Capitals forward Tom Wilson had a five-game point streak end (nine points; three goals, six assists).