"Any time you get something it's good, but I think that's one we would have liked two," said Bryan Rust, who tied it up at the 12:52 mark of the third to help secure said point.
Danton Heinen also scored for Pittsburgh, while Casey DeSmith made 43 saves throughout regulation and overtime. After allowing six goals on 39 shots during his surprise start in Pittsburgh's last game with an injury to Tristan Jarry, the Penguins netminder regrouped incredibly well for tonight's contest.
"I felt great tonight. I felt like myself. I felt like I played my game, which I was really happy about," DeSmith said. "That was kind of my focus going in - just trusting my game, going out and playing it. Thankfully, I was able to do that."
Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring just six minutes into the game with a one-timer on the power play … a tale as old as time. Ovechkin now has 32 goals on the season as he continues on his quest to break the all-time scoring record currently held by Gordie Howe.
The Caps had a lot of momentum from there, and ended up outshooting the Penguins 22-7 in that opening frame. But Pittsburgh came out much stronger in the second, and quickly tied it up with a goal from Heinen.
The winger stayed hot after breaking the schneid in the Penguins' last game, where Heinen got on the board - and added a couple of assists - for the first time since Oct. 25. His line with Drew O'Connor and Ryan Poehling, which was put together on Sunday in New Jersey, has had some pretty instant chemistry.
And while it was Washington who got on the board first in the final frame, with Marcus Johansson's wrister appearing to change direction just slightly, Mr. Elimination stepped up in a building where he's been known to score some clutch goals.
Rust became the 11th player in franchise history to record his first 300 career points with the Penguins. Since making his debut on Dec. 13, 2014, that number ranks sixth on Pittsburgh - and only Sidney Crosby (257), Evgeni Malkin (206) and Jake Guentzel (181) have scored than Rust's 134.
Just 47 seconds into overtime, Malkin was assessed a questionable tripping call on T.J. Oshie. DeSmith and the penalty killers did a tremendous job to keep Washington off the board, with Brian Dumoulin in particular making some great defensive reads which led to clears.
Rickard Rakell scored an absolutely filthy goal in the shootout, but Crosby and Malkin were denied by Darcy Kuemper, and Nicklas Backstrom got the game-deciding tally. Here's what head coach Mike Sullivan had to say after the game.
On if that was a good point: "Any time you get a point, it's a good point. It was a hard-fought point, I'll tell you that. I thought we competed hard."
On what he has to do to help get this team to get more consistency at the beginning of games:"Yeah, I don't have an answer for you. We got to be ready to play."
On the message going into the next penalty kill after the Ovechkin power-play goal: "Well, we have schemes that we tailor depending on who our opponent is. I'm not going to share them with you. But we make adjustments based on what we see out there."
On DeSmith's performance after Casey wasn't overly satisfied with his last game: "I thought he was terrific tonight and gave us a chance to win tonight. He made some big saves."
On if he sensed the urgency between two divisional rivals fighting for points: "Yeah, again, I thought it was a hard-fought game. There were momentum swings back and forth. I thought they had a good first period I thought we had pretty good second period. The third period, there were momentum swings on both sides. The penalty kill did a terrific job in overtime to get us to the shootout to give us an opportunity."
