Jakob Chychrun, Aliaksei Protas and Connor McMichael each had a goal and an assist for the Capitals (39-29-9), who have won four of five. Alex Ovechkin and Pierre-Luc Dubois each had two assists.<\/p>\n
Rasmus Dahlin had a goal and an assist for the Sabres (46-23-8), who are 2-3-2 in their past seven.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alex Lyon allowed three goals on five shots before he was replaced at 5:52 of the first period by Colten Ellis, who made 20 saves in relief.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Buffalo qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2011 when the Detroit Red Wings lost 4-1 at the New York Rangers earlier in the day, ending the longest drought in NHL history.<\/p>\n
The Capitals scored three goals in a 2:37 span in the opening period.<\/p>\n
Chychrun put Washington up 1-0 at 3:15, pouncing on the rebound of an Ovechkin shot in the left face-off circle and snapping the puck past a screened Lyon to the blocker side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Strome made it 2-0 just 20 seconds later at 3:35. Ovechkin sent a backhand pass to the front of the net and Protas fed the puck across the crease to Strome, who tapped it into an open net.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McMichael extended the lead to 3-0 at 5:52. Chychrun’s initial wrist shot from the high slot bounced off the end boards in front to McMichael, who buried a snap shot at the right post to chase Lyon from the game.<\/p>\n
Dahlin cut the deficit to 3-1 just 38 seconds later at 6:30 with a wrist shot from the slot over Thompson’s blocker.<\/p>\n
Beck Malenstyn brought the Sabres to within 3-2 at 12:15. Dahlin’s shot from the right point deflected off Jordan Greenway in front, and Malenstyn gathered the puck and lifted it over the glove of a sprawling Thompson.<\/p>\n
Protas made it 4-2 while the teams skated 4-on-4 with a snap shot under Ellis’ blocker from the right circle at 6:06 of the second period.<\/p>\n
Ryan Leonard pushed the lead to 5-2 at 6:26 of the third period, taking a drop pass from Cole Hutson, then burying a wrist shot from just outside the left circle to the blocker side.<\/p>\n
Tom Wilson scored a short-handed goal at 8:55 for a 6-2 advantage when he took a pass from McMichael as he drove the net and slid the puck under the right pad of Ellis after a forehand-backhand deke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jakob Chychrun, Aliaksei Protas and Connor McMichael each had a goal and an assist for the Capitals (39-29-9),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-541346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-capitals","13":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116349792066575596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}