Apr 4, 2026; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin (8) celebrates with teammates after their game against the Buffalo Sabres at Capital One Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
With six games remaining on the schedule heading into last night’s game, the Caps knew they needed to play desperate hockey if they want to have a shot at making the playoffs. That desperation was on full display from the opening faceoff last night, as the Caps jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead and seemed en route to a laugher of a victory.
The Sabres, however, had other ideas, scoring two goals – the first of which was less than a minute after Connor McMichael put the Caps up by three – to cut the lead down and send the two teams back to the locker rooms locked in a tight, 3-2 battle.
The Caps needed to come out in the second with a with a good response, because Buffalo clearly was not going to go down easily. They got it in the form of an Aliaksei Protas goal…welcome back, sir.
The play actually started with a Sabres’ two-on-one between Josh Doan and Ryan McLeod that went awry. McLeod tried to send it over to Owen Power, but instead, the puck ended up on the stick of Protas, and he was off to the races. This was the kind of breakaway which, last year, would have been an automatic goal for Protas – but not so much this season, so it was nice to see Pro find the back of the net for his second point of the night and 24th goal of the season:
A beautiful “the future is now” play from Justin Sourdif to Cole Hutson to Ryan Leonard to the back of the net put the Caps up 5-2 in the third, followed by a beauty of a shorthanded goal by Tom Wilson to make it six, and this one goes into the books as a crucial victory. On a rare night when the out-of-town scoreboard actually cooperated, those two points are a huge deal. Next up: they need to take care of business at MSG tonight against the Rangers.
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