Capitals blow 3-goal lead, lose to Blue Jackets in overtime

Mar 22, 2023, 02:23 am

WASHINGTON -- — Boone Jenner tied it with 46.9 seconds left in the third period, Jack Roslovic scored his second goal of the game in overtime and the NHL-worst Columbus Blue Jackets rallied to beat the Washington Capitals 7-6 on Tuesday night.

The Blue Jackets ended a three-game losing streak and dealt Washington another blow in its longshot bid to make the playoffs. The Capitals sit five points back of Florida for the second and final Eastern Conference wild-card spot with 10 games left to play.

"Everybody realizes exactly where we’re at and what needs to be done," coach Peter Laviolette said. "We didn’t get it done tonight.”

With Darcy Kuemper still out because of injury, Charlie Lindgren allowed seven goals on 39 shots in his second consecutive start. The Capitals blew a 3-0 lead, and the loss spoiled the celebration of captain Alex Ovechkin for reaching second on the career goals list.

“I don’t remember giving up that many leads in one game,” said Conor Sheary, who scored to end a 21-game goal drought. “It’s an unfortunate way to lose.”

Minutes after a pregame ceremony in his honor, Ovechkin scored his 40th goal of the season. He has now scored 40 goals in a season 13 times, the most in league history, breaking a tie with Wayne Gretzky, who did it 12 times.

With the goal, Ovechkin is at 820 for his career. He needs 75 to break Gretzky’s record of 894 that has long seemed unapproachable.

“You don’t want to lose a game, but tonight was a special day for me, for the whole organization, for fans,” Ovechkin said. "Unfortunately, we lost.”

Nick Jensen had two goals and T.J. Oshie and Sonny Milano also scored for the Capitals, who have lost three in a row and six of their past eight games.

“Any time you’re scoring six goals and losing, it’s going to be a rough night," Jensen said. “You’ve got to keep reiterating defense and working at it and finding what is going wrong. There obviously is something going wrong, so we got to find those and make defense a priority.”

Columbus got two goals from Adam Boqvist and one each from Eric Robinson, Emil Bemstrom and Jenner. Daniil Tarasov made 31 saves, and Roslovic completed the comeback with 2:17 left in 3-on-3 OT.

“We’ve been hit on the chin a lot this year,” Roslovic said. "It’s something that will be good for us going down the road as to learning how to grind through that adversity and it’s something that we can learn from tonight, to be able to find wins.”

Game notes
Nicolas Aube-Kubel was a healthy scratch for the Capitals, replaced in the lineup by Aliaksei Protas. ... With Brad Larsen away from the team because of a death in the family, associate coach Pascal Vincent ran the Blue Jackets bench for the game.

UP NEXT

Blue Jackets: Return home to face the New York Islanders on Friday night.

Capitals: Host the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday night.

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Follow AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SWhyno

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