Zetterlund scores late in 3rd period, Senators defeat Capitals

OTTAWA -- Fabian Zetterlund broke a tie with 2:22 remaining, and the Ottawa Senators defeated the Washington Capitals 4-3 at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.

Zetterlund, fresh off the bench, one-timed a cross-slot pass from Thomas Chabot past a sliding Logan Thompson.

"I think I called for it first, but then [Chabot] spun around and made a backhand play to me," Zetterlund said. "Great play by him.

"I think we didn't come out the way we wanted to. But the second and third, we bounced back and we played like we wanted to win and wanted to be here. It shows the character of this group."

Tim Stutzle had the secondary assist on Zetterlund's goal to extend his point streak to 11 games (18 points; eight goals, 10 assists).

David Perron, Ridly Greig and Nick Jensen scored, Shane Pinto had two assists, and Leevi Merilainen made 26 saves for the Senators (19-15-5), who trailed 2-0 after the first period.

"I thought we played a hell of a last 40 minutes," Ottawa coach Travis Green said.

Tom Wilson had a goal and an assist, and Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas scored for the Capitals (21-15-5), who have lost five of their past seven games (2-4-1). Thompson made 28 saves.

"No excuses, we fell apart in the second and the third," Thompson said. "That's what happens when you let good teams kind of hang around; they have a lot of fire power."

Wilson gave Washington a 1-0 lead at 8:13 of the first period. Merilainen made three saves in a span of three seconds before Wilson finished on a rebound. It was Wilson's fifth goal in three games.

"It seems like right now we're finding ways to lose games," Strome said. "That's kind of something that we've got to fix and correct. You never want to be out there for goals against; you don't want to feel like you're hurting your team. I feel like, for whatever reason right now, we're kind of getting caught on the wrong side of pucks and it seems like every time they're going in the net."

Strome made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 18:59. He skated in from the point and beat a screened Merilainen glove side with a wrist shot.

"Probably can't repeat a lot of the things that I said," Green said of addressing his players in the first intermission. "I just didn't think we were into the game. I just thought we weren't playing to win. We were playing light, there wasn't a lot of firmness, heaviness to our game. We were on the outside looking in, and that's really uncharacteristic of our team when we're playing well, especially under the circumstances of our last few games. But I give them a lot of credit; they showed a lot character to turn the page and come out and play with a lot of energy, a lot of compete."

Jensen cut it to 2-1 at 7:42 of the second period. Moments after Jake Sanderson hit the cross bar, Jensen's shot from the right side beat Thompson before he could reset.

Greig tied it 2-2 at 19:31. He tipped a Pinto point shot, got his own rebound and the puck rattled around in the crease until Thompson accidentally kicked it in with his left leg.

Perron one-timed a centering pass from Stephen Halliday over Thompson's glove to give the Senators a 3-2 lead at 2:47 of the third period.

"We wished we would've had a better start," Chabot said. "But you know what? We stuck with it and we played our game and we had a big second period. And I thought, to be honest, in the third period, I thought we completely took over the game."

Protas took a centering feed from Justin Sourdif and beat Merilainen over the glove with a wrist shot from the middle of the slot to tie it 3-3 at 15:53.

"Just making three or four astronomical errors," Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. "If you expect to win on the road and manage a game on a back-to-back (6-3 win against the New York Rangers on Wednesday), you just can't make those types of errors."

NOTES: With his 20th assist of the season, Sanderson became the first defenseman in Ottawa history to reach the mark in each of his first four years in the NHL.