Ovechkin scores twice to tie Selanne, Capitals defeat Senators

WASHINGTON -- Alex Ovechkin scored twice to tie Teemu Selanne for 11th place on the NHL's all-time goals list, and the Washington Capitals defeated the Ottawa Senators 6-1 at Capital One Arena on Tuesday.

Ovechkin's second goal of the game, at 16:19 of the third period, gave him 26 for the season and 684 for his NHL career.
"Without my boys, my teammates, obviously I would never reach that number, and to be in that company it is pretty big," Ovechkin said. "But you know, long way to go and I'm trying my best."
WATCH: [All Senators vs. Capitals highlights]
T.J. Oshie scored twice for Washington (30-9-5), which has won three straight and 14 of 19. Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves in his seventh straight win.
Artem Anisimov scored for Ottawa (16-22-5), which is 0-4-1 in its past five games. Craig Anderson allowed five goals on 30 shots before he was pulled for Marcus Hogberg at 2:08 of the third period. Hogberg made 10 saves.
"This is a process," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "Those are great minutes for our young guys to see how you've got to play to get to the level of being the best team in the National Hockey League, and we'll continue to get better."

Anisimov made it 1-0 at 5:40 of the first period when he roofed a wrist shot from the right circle after Rudolfs Balcers forced a turnover.
Oshie tied the game 1-1 when he knocked in a loose puck at 1:19 of the second period.
The Capitals took a 2-1 lead at 8:32 when Radko Gudas scored on a one-timer from the top of the left face-off circle off a feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov.
"I thought we came out and played a good first period. After that, in the second, they were the better team. In the third also," Ottawa forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. "We have a few days now to regroup and to watch some video. We did some good things also in this game that we need to keep, but there's a lot of stuff we need to work on."

Forty-six seconds after Ovechkin had his shot swept off the goal line by Senators defenseman Dylan DeMelo, Ovechkin gave the Capitals a 3-1 lead when he sent a wrist shot over Anderson's left shoulder from the right circle at 17:15.
"They started coming in waves because of our turnovers, and I think when you turn the puck over on a team like that with so much world-class talent they're going to make you pay," DeMelo said.
Oshie made it 4-1 when he converted a cross-ice pass from Nicklas Backstrom 41 seconds into the third period for his 18th goal.
"I've been trying to focus on getting to the net a little bit more this year," Oshie said. "A lot of goals early were coming from in and around the net and then lately I don't think I was skating well enough for a little while there to get myself into good positions, so I've been focusing on that a little bit. A lot of them are great plays by my linemates."

Lars Eller knocked in a centering pass from Jonas Siegenthaler at 2:08 to make it 5-1.
"No panic," Eller said. "Just keep playing our game shift by shift, and sooner or later we'd get the looks -- and we did. You can't take these games for granted to get the two points, but we handled it really well today."

They said it

"The first period was really good. I don't think we gave them a chance. The second period, we turned it over a little bit, but they make you do that, and they put the puck behind us, forechecked us, scored on the chances they got. We fell behind, and then they really came out and stepped on us in the third period." -- Senators coach D.J. Smith
"We knew what we were up against tonight and got behind early, but we stuck with our game plan. We didn't cheat, we didn't try to force offense, went about our system the right way and started to play the game a little bit quicker and we were able to have more success. We did some good things and were rewarded for it." -- Capitals coach Todd Reirden

Need to know

Ottawa forward Nicholas Paul left with a lower-body injury in the second period. "It looks like it's going to be a couple of weeks," Smith said. … Senators defenseman Christian Jaros didn't return after colliding with Oshie in the third period. Smith said the move was for precautionary reasons. … DeMelo was minus-2 in 26:19 after missing 10 games with a broken finger. … Senators forward Vladislav Namestnikov played his 400th NHL game. … Samsonov is 12-2-1. He needs one win to tie Bob Mason (eight straight wins in 1984-85) for the longest run by a Capitals rookie goalie… Kuznetsov has eight points (four goals, four assists) during a six-game point streak. … Eller has scored in three straight games.

What's next

Senators: At the Detroit Red Wings on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, FS-D, TSN5, RDS, NHL.TV)
Capitals: At the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN)