Brandon Duhaime, Dylan Strome and Jakob Chychrun scored for the Capitals (8-7-1), who had lost two in a row. John Carlson had two assists.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored for the Hurricanes (11-5-0), who had won four straight. Frederik Andersen made 24 saves before leaving the game with 5:10 remaining after a collision with Carolina captain Jordan Staal. Pyotr Kochetkov played 3:36 in relief.
Washington took a 1-0 lead at 5:42 of the first period. Ethen Frank took a pass out of the corner from Nic Dowd and made a backhand feed to Duhaime for a tap-in at the right post.
Strome took a pass from Ovechkin and scored on a top shelf snap shot from the right hash marks to make it 2-0 at 5:59 of the second period.
Thompson made a glove save on Jackson Blake off the rush, but Ehlers popped in the rebound near the right post to cut the lead to 2-1 at 13:56.
Carolina thought it scored at 8:10, when the puck poked through Thompson’s pad and settled close to the goal line before Connor McMichael knocked it out. After an official review of the play, referees ruled the puck did not entirely cross the goal line and it was ruled no goal.
The Capitals made it 3-1 on the power play at 5:46. Andersen stopped Ryan Leonard’s shot from the slot, but the block left Chychrun alone in front and he scored on the rebound.
Ovechkin scored an empty-net goal, his 901st career goal, with 31 seconds remaining for the 4-1 final.