Alex Ovechkin marked his 841st career goal as the Washington Capitals triumphed over the Vancouver Canucks 2-1 on Saturday night.
Tom Wilson also found the net as the Capitals drew level with the New York Islanders, trailing Detroit by one point for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Charlie Lindgren stopped 21 shots.
Ovechkin now trails Wayne Gretzky by 53 goals for the top spot on the NHL’s all-time scoring list.
“(The Canucks) had a little push to start, but other than that everyone worked extremely, extremely hard tonight and poured their heart out, so it was a character win for us,” said Washington’s T.J. Oshie. “This team just keeps finding a way. Our character keeps shining through and finding ways to just keep this thing alive, so it’s fun right now.”
Brock Boeser scored for the Canucks, who maintained their position atop the Western Conference, one point ahead of Colorado and Dallas. Casey DeSmith made 22 saves.
“It was a low-event game, not much offense, a lot of missed shots, not much interior play,” said Canucks coach Rick Tocchet. “We’re not attacking the interior, and we missed so many chances or shots, a lot of shots.”
Vancouver pulled DeSmith with two minutes remaining but failed to beat Lindgren with the extra skater.
The Canucks took the lead just 1:11 into the game when Quinn Hughes’ shot from the face-off circle was tipped in by Boeser. Hughes also set up the goal, recording his 77th point of the season, a new career high.
Washington equalized at 6:01 of the second period when Wilson redirected a shot from Ivan Miroshnichenko. Ovechkin then gave the Capitals the lead at 7:54, tapping in a pass from Connor McMichael.
Despite a strong push from the Canucks in the third period, outshooting the Capitals 11-4, Washington held on for the win.
T.J. Oshie played his 1,000th regular-season NHL game, receiving a warm ovation from the crowd during the game’s first TV timeout. Tyler Myers returned to the Canucks’ lineup after missing six games with an upper-body injury.
