PHILADELPHIA (AP) — With star Alex Ovechkin shut out on the scoresheet, the Washington Capitals turned to their fourth line when they most needed offense.
Garnet Hathaway scored two goals in a span of less than two minutes late in the third period and the Capitals rallied late to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-3 on Thursday night.
Joe Snively, Michal Kempny and John Carlson also scored for the Capitals, who won their fifth in a row on the road to improve to 16-5-4 away from Washington.
“It’s not just about defense for them,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said of the line that Nic Dowd centers with Hathaway and Carl Hagelin. “They do a good job of getting out of the defensive zone and into the offensive zone and generating time, generating chances, and they’re able to score goals.”
Gerry Mayhew’s second of the game put Philadelphia in front 3-2 with 3:51 left in the third before the Capitals staged their furious comeback.
Hathaway tied it at 3 just 54 seconds after Mayhew’s goal when his deflection from the slot of Carlson’s long-range shot got past Flyers goalie Martin Jones.
Hathaway then gave Washington a 4-3 lead with 1:12 left in the third — 1:45 after his first goal. Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov turned the puck over behind the net and Hagelin found Hathaway all alone in front, and Hathaway buried it for his 10th of the season.
“It’s huge,” Hathaway said. “It’s a good feeling. I think we’ve been playing well lately.”
Travis Sanheim added a goal and an assist for Philadelphia, which has lost four in a row. The Flyers played the first contest of a club-record eight-game homestand. They won’t hit the road again until March 10 at Florida.
“We’re learning we can have confidence playing our game; now we have to learn that we have to have confidence finishing the game,” Flyers interim coach Mike Yeo said. “We have to learn how to win. Sometimes learning how to win is learning how not to lose.”
Carlson added an empty-netter with 48.8 seconds left.
Ovechkin entered fourth in the league in goals (31) and tied for fifth in points (62).
After a sloppy, listless first period, things heated up in the second. Early in the period, Caps defenseman Dmitry Orlov shoved Flyers captain Claude Giroux into the boards. Philadelphia’s Scott Laughton responded on the next shift with a crunching check of Kempny before dropping the gloves with Trevor van Riemsdyk.
“It’s frustrating,” Laughton said. “Gotta find a way to close that one out.”
The Flyers went on the power play after van Riemsdyk was assessed an instigator penalty, along with a game misconduct. And Philadelphia took advantage, tying the game at 1 with a slick tic-tac-toe setup from Isaac Ratcliffe and Oskar Lindblom to Mayhew, who beat Ilya Samsonov 8:54 into the period from the side of the net for his fourth goal.
After Ovechkin just missed giving Washington the lead, rattling the post with a hard slap shot, the Caps went in front when Snively followed his own miss on the power play to make it 2-1 with 7:11 left in the second.
Sanheim knotted it at 2 with 58.4 seconds left in the period, finishing a pretty 2-on-1 with Travis Konecny by lifting the puck high over Samsonov from close range.
Kempny netted his first of the season on a hard slap shot from the point that whizzed past Jones’ blocker to put Washington up 1-0 late in the first period.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Capitals: D Justin Schultz (upper body) missed his second straight contest. He is day to day.
Flyers: D Rasmus Ristolainen (upper body) was out of the lineup for the third game in a row. … Mayhew returned after a one-game absence following a cut near his eye that required 12 stitches.
UP NEXT
Capitals: After a six-day break, Washington is at the New York Rangers on Feb. 24.
Flyers: Host Carolina on Monday.
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