PITTSBURGH — Alex Ovechkin had two goals and an assist and the Washington Capitals snapped a three-game losing streak with a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins Wednesday night.
Niklas Backstrom had three assists, Tomas Fleischmann had a goal and an assist and Viktor Kozlov, Alexander Semin and Jeff Schultz also scored for Washington, which had four third-period goals.
Miroslav Satan had a goal and an assist and Sidney Crosby had two assists for the reeling Penguins, who have lost eight of 10 overall and six of seven at home.
Crosby left the game late in the game after a collision with David Steckel along the boards during a power play. He limped off the ice, favoring his leg, and soon after went to the locker room and did not return. No immediate word was available on his condition.
The game was the latest meeting between the two star-studded teams in what has become one of the NHL’s most spirited rivalries. Evgeni Malkin of Pittsburgh, Crosby and Ovechkin are at the top of the league’s season scoring leaders, and Semin’s 38 points in 27 games would put him among that group if he hadn’t missed time due to injury this season.
Ovechkin had all three of his points in the third, which began with the teams tied at 2.
He snapped a four-game goal-less streak with his 28th of the season while on a power play 1:48 into the period, flipping his own rebound over the pads of Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Penguins tied it 84 seconds later during a delayed penalty call when Crosby fed Whitney for his first goal since Feb. 21 of last season — a span of 31 games. Whitney ripped a slap shot from the left point that hooked up into the upper corner on Theodore’s stick side.
But the goal that put the Capitals ahead for good came on the power play via a diving shot by Fleischmann from the slot off an Ovechkin rebound with 11:49 to play. Ovechkin’s second of the game 3:16 later gave Washington a 5-3 lead. Schultz had an empty-netter, his first of the season, with 1:06 left.
Pittsburgh struck first 5:45 into the contest when Crosby fed Malkin for a slap shot from the right point that beat Washington’s Jose Theodore for his 18th of the season.
Kozlov tied it 1:06 into the second when his innocent-looking wrist shot from the slot handcuffed Fleury, who got a glove on it but allowed it to trickle over him for Kozlov’s 10th of the season.
Satan’s 13th of the season 8:23 into the second was the 350th of his career but his first in 14 games.
It gave the Penguins a lead that lasted only about four minutes until Semin tied it at 2 with his 18th, a pretty redirection off a feed from Sergei Federov.
Notes: Pittsburgh D Rob Scuderi left the game late in the first
period after being struck in the forehead with a slap shot by Mike Green. Scuderi, who went down to block the shot, bled onto the ice. … Talbot left the game early in the third with an undisclosed injury and did not return. … Before he left the game for good, Crosby had gone to the locker room briefly in the first period after he toppled over a laid-out Kozlov and fell hard onto his right side. He returned less than four minutes later.
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