Wilson scores twice, Capitals hold off Islanders for 4th straight win

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Tom Wilson had two goals and an assist for the Washington Capitals in a 4-1 win against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Sunday.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 909th NHL goal and had an assist, and Logan Thompson made 30 saves for the Capitals (15-9-2), who have won four in a row and seven of their past eight games.

“They're a good team, they have a lot of offense,” Thompson said. “Some of their players are really good at the net front, so the biggest thing is I just try to hold my feet as much as I can and I just try to get as much as I can behind the puck, and luckily, for a majority of the game, I thought my body was behind a lot of the pucks, and that's credit to the guys in front of me as well. I thought the defense did a good job at letting me see and track pucks tonight.”

Bo Horvat scored the lone goal for the Islanders (13-10-3), who are 1-3-1 through the first five games of their seven-game homestand. Ilya Sorokin made 14 saves.

“We're getting a lot of shots, a lot of opportunities,” Horvat said. “It's a matter of bearing down and getting these goals. It's a frustrating feeling knowing you're playing good hockey, but it's just not going in. But that's on us, and we got to find a way to get it done. … It's just a matter of it going in for us right now. It's obviously frustrating, but again, just something we got to keep working on and just build on what we're doing, and eventually it's going to start going in.”

Thompson kept the game scoreless just 42 seconds into the first period when he stacked the pads to deny a snap shot from Anders Lee on a 2-on-1.

Wilson then gave Washington a 1-0 lead on a power play at 7:37. Ovechkin sent a no-look pass to Wilson, who redirected the puck over Sorokin’s glove.

Thompson preserved the one-goal lead at 9:32 by stopping a deflection from Lee before diving back to cover the puck with help from Dylan Strome before it trickled over the goal line.

Wilson scored the second of the game at 13:58 of the second period to give the Capitals a 2-0 lead. Sorokin tried to pass the puck up the boards from behind his own net, but his pass went right to Wilson, who buried it into the open net.

“I don't think I've ever had one of those in my career on a goalie who turned it over up the middle like that,” Wilson said. “It's kind of lucky, and I think he was trying to go a little bit further with it, and I just made a bit of a read and got lucky to knock it down. So, I’ll take it.”

New York outshot Washington 22-14 through the first two periods.

“We were OK. We got better as the game went on,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “We were OK in the second period. We forechecked their goalie and got a bit of a gift there. We get up 2-0, and then we're able to protect it. I thought it was a pretty tidy third period. We gave up a few looks but did a pretty good job, for the most part, just making sure that we manage that game at 2-0, and we were able to hold on for the two points.”

Horvat cut it to 2-1 on a power play at 13:43 of the third period. Horvat beat Thompson blocker side from the top of the crease for his 15th goal of the season.

Aliaksei Protas beat out an icing and made it 3-1 with an empty-net goal at 18:49 before Ovechkin scored No. 909 into an empty net at 19:29 for the 4-1 final.

“Sometimes after games there's nothing to be said,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “And I think today is an example. We did everything right. We had a lot of shots and we had a lot of chances. We just came up short. We could find excuses. I get it. I mean, the standard of our team is to win hockey games and do the right thing, but sometimes we just need to continue to play the way we are and believe that things will go our way.”