Shorthanded Penguins Fall To Caps As Ovechkin Plays What Could Be Last Game In Pittsburgh

Going into the first game of their home-and-home series against the Washington Capitals on Saturday - and the final home game of the regular season - the Pittsburgh Penguins were going to be pretty shorthanded. Having already clinched a playoff berth with a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, the Penguins had a plethora of players nursing some injuries that they decided to hold out of the lineup - despite the possibility that it could be Alex Ovechkin's final game in Pittsburgh. Well, the Penguins looked like a team that was missing a whole lot of regulars from their lineup - and Washington's young guys delivered in a must-win game for the Capitals.

The Caps defeated the Pens, 6-3, With Ovechkin scoring the empty-net goal near the end of the contest to cap off the win. Ryan Leonard scored twice, each Protas brother - Aliaksei and Ilya - got on the board, and Tom Wilson registered his second-consecutive 30-goal season for the Caps en route to the win. Penguins' netminder Arturs Silovs stopped 25 of 30 Washington shots on goal, while Pittsburgh only registered 12 shots of its own over the entire course of the game.

There was no score after the first period, where the Capitals outshot the Penguins, 10-1, but Silovs stood tall. But the second period got pretty crazy quickly. Aliaksei Protas opened the scoring just a minute and half into the middle frame, but Penguins' leading goal-scorer Anthony Mantha cashed in just 26 seconds later to knot the game up at 1-1 with his 32nd of the season.

ANTHONY MANTHA, GOAL SCORING MACHINE! 🤩 pic. twitter.