Capitals recover, pull away from Penguins

WASHINGTON --Tom Wilson scored the go-ahead goal at 12:40 of the third period, and the Washington Capitals defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 at Capital One Arena on Thursday.

Washington gave up a two-goal lead in the period before Wilson redirected a centering pass from John Carlson on the power play to make it 3-2 after Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang's stick broke.
"When a guy loses a stick it's another advantage in our favor," Wilson said. "We were able to execute and it was in the back of the net. That's a fortunate break for us, but at the end of the day we've still got to put it in, and the power play did a good job to do that."
Nicklas Backstrom, Lars Eller and T.J. Oshie each had a goal and an assist for the Capitals (10-5-4), who split the two-game set. Carlson had two assists, and Vitek Vanecek made 26 saves.
Brandon Tanev and Jake Guentzel scored, and Tristan Jarry made 30 saves for the Penguins (10-7-1), who had won three straight.
"I loved our resilience," Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. "There was a lot of fight in getting back in the game. We come back and get those two goals and I thought we had pretty good momentum. So it was unfortunate that we didn't find a way to at least get a point out of this, but that's hockey."
The Penguins have won four of the six games between the teams this season, including two in overtime and one in the shootout. Pittsburgh won 3-2 in overtime here Tuesday.
"We walked away with a point [Tuesday] but tonight … more reflects what we want to see and what we are trying to get to," Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. "So it was nice to follow up [Tuesday] with a win. I think we did things the right way and we got rewarded for it."
Backstrom gave Washington a 1-0 lead at 11:20 of the first period when he worked a give-and-go with Nick Jensen.
Oshie made it 2-0 at 3:18 of the third period when he slid the puck past Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson on the rush and then dove to poke it in for his third goal in the past three games.
"I mean what an individual effort to make that happen," Laviolette said. "He's been good. I think that he's been a consistent player for us the entire year, and it is nice to see him get rewarded. To me that was a lot of individual effort and a really nice play to finish it off."

Tanev cut it to 2-1 with a shorthanded goal, beating Vanecek through the five-hole on the rush at 4:22.
"I saw I had some speed carrying the puck up the ice," Tanev said, "and I think Teddy [Blueger] did a great job in pushing the defenseman back and creating some more space for me, and I was fortunate to put a puck on net and the end result was a goal."
The Penguins tied it 2-2 when Guentzel scored at 7:22, skating out from behind the goal line and sliding the puck through Vanecek's pads.
"I just tried to beat my guy, and great play by [Kasperi Kapanen] to allow that lane for me to get to the front of the net," Guentzel said. "I'm just trying to get to the front of the net and see what happens from there. So I'm not really sure where it went in, but I'll take it."

Carl Hagelin scored an empty-net goal to make it 4-2 with 1:22 remaining, and Eller scored another with 52 seconds left for the 5-2 final.
NOTES: The Penguins were 0-for-4 on the power play. The Capitals were 1-for-3. … Washington was 3-1-1 on a five-game homestand. … Vanecek (8-4-3) is tied with Kevin Lankinen (8-3-3) of the Chicago Blackhawks for the most wins among NHL rookies. … Backstrom's assist was the 699th of his NHL career.