Capitals recover, defeat Jets in Kovalchuk debut

WASHINGTON -- Alex Ovechkin scored his 701st NHL goal and had the deciding goal in the shootout, helping the Washington Capitals defeat the Winnipeg Jets 4-3 at Capital One Arena on Tuesday.

After Ovechkin beat Laurent Brossoit with a backhand in the fifth round of the shootout, Braden Holtby stopped Nikolaj Ehlers to end it.
"Sometimes even I don't know what I'm going to do out there, so I'll take it," Ovechkin said of his shootout move.
WATCH: [All Jets vs. Capitals highlights]
Jakub Vrana and Garnet Hathaway scored for Washington (39-18-6), which has won two in a row for the first time since a four-game winning streak Jan. 13-27. The Capitals moved four points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins for first in the Metropolitan Division.
Holtby made 30 saves, and Washington won despite giving up a 3-0 lead.
"When we get that kind of lead, we have to manage the puck right, you know, and we should easily win the game," Ovechkin said. "But, again, a couple of bad bounces, a couple mistakes and it's in our net. Obviously, [Holtby] today was unbelievable, all four lines were rolling, and it was fun to watch."

Washington forward Ilya Kovalchuk, who was traded from the Montreal Canadiens for a third-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft on Sunday, played 14:39 in his Capitals debut and was stopped on his shootout attempt.
Ehlers, Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele scored for Winnipeg (32-27-6), which is 0-2-1 in its past three and is tied with the Nashville Predators and Arizona Coyotes for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference. Laurent Brossoit made 34 saves.
The teams play again Thursday in the second half of a home-and-home.
"I'm glad we got the point because it's so critical," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "You'd like to win that game. It gets to a shootout. Laurent was just really good and a big piece of us getting to the shootout alone, so I'm hoping these men appreciate the work that they did tonight."
The Jets tied it 3-3 at 16:46 of the third period when Scheifele drove to the net and the puck went in off Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov's skate.

Soon after a ceremony honoring him for scoring his 700th NHL goal on Saturday, Ovechkin scored No. 701 to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead at 1:55 of the first period. After his initial shot hit Jets defenseman Nathan Beaulieu, Ovechkin batted the puck in.
"I thought that was an emotional moment for him, and for him to gather himself and continue to play and score the first goal, that made for a nice night for sure," Capitals coach Todd Reirden said. "Happy for him, he deserves it."
Vrana made it 2-0 at 10:07 on a breakaway.
"In the first, obviously they were all over us," Brossoit said. "We've been a bit slow to get started in a lot of the games the past month. In a lot of them we've come back to win."
Hathaway ended a 24-game goal drought when he knocked in a rebound to push the lead to 3-0 at 13:25 of the second period.
"I felt like I've been getting a lot of chances too, haven't been converting on them and it's been a battle," he said.

Winnipeg cut it to 3-1 when Holtby made the save on a wide-open Cody Eakin in front before the puck trickled free and Ehlers knocked it in at 18:33.
"[Ehlers'] goal is huge because now we're talking about completely different things between the second and the third," Maurice said.
Connor took advantage of a Washington turnover and made it 3-2 on a breakaway at 8:39 of the third.

They said it

"That's a Stanley Cup championship team over there. For us to fight back and have the confidence to fight back and not give up, stay in the fight like we talked about all year, I think that's huge. I think in a couple of days when we play them again, it's going to be the same mentality, but we've got to come out with a better start." -- Jets defenseman Anthony Bitetto
"When you're ahead in a game, you'd like to lock it down and continue to solidify the fact that you get those two points in regulation. So, all learning points and we're inside those final [19 games], so we'll take some positives and build on those because it had been quite some time since we had a lead like that. So now we've got to get used to playing with leads again." -- Capitals coach Todd Reirden

Need to know

Jets defenseman Sami Niku did not play because of a lower-body injury sustained prior to the warmup. … Scheifele has nine points (four goals, five assists) in a five-game point streak. … Orlov had two assists.

What's next

Jets: Host the Washington Capitals on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN+, TSN3, NBCSWA, NHL.TV)
Capitals: At the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN+, TSN3, NBCSWA, NHL.TV)