{"id":554393,"date":"2026-03-21T06:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554393\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:30:08","slug":"thompson-makes-30-saves-capitals-edge-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554393\/","title":{"rendered":"Thompson makes 30 saves, Capitals edge Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/alex-ovechkin-8471214\" title=\"Alex Ovechkin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, who is one away from closing in on 1,000 career goals combined in the regular season (922) and playoffs (77), was denied by Allen with a highlight-reel stop at 15:56 of the second period. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/anthony-beauvillier-8478463\" title=\"Anthony Beauvillier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthony Beauvillier<\/a>\u00a0put a shot on Allen off the rush from the bottom of the left circle, with Ovechkin getting the rebound. Ovechkin attempted to beat Allen glove side, but Allen quickly got to the right post to deny Ovechkin with the right pad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel bad for (Allen),\u201d Devils captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/nico-hischier-8480002\" title=\"Nico Hischier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nico Hischier<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cHe gave everything he had, and I think we\u2019ve got to make sure that we get that win for him. He played an unbelievable game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thompson preserved the 1-0 lead when he got his right pad out to block\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/dawson-mercer-8482110\" title=\"Dawson Mercer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dawson Mercer<\/a>\u2019s one-timer at the left post at 6:05 of the third period.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust tried to take away the bottom half, kind of play the percentage, and he shot it into me,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cA lot times, they can put it upstairs and that\u2019s a goal. Fortunately, it went my way tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Protas made it 2-0 when he scored into an empty net at 18:17.<\/p>\n<p>Just 1:00 later, Bratt pulled the Devils within 2-1 at 19:17 when he scored on a snap shot from the bottom of the right circle off a feed from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/jack-hughes-8481559\" title=\"Jack Hughes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Hughes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought we had a really strong push in the third period, no question,\u201d Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said. \u201cA lot of scoring opportunities, clean looks at the net and some scrambles and rebounds and things of that nature that we didn&#8217;t come by in the first and second. But a real good push there in the third, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NOTES: Leonard became the fourth Capitals rookie since 1987-88 to score 15 goals in a season. The others: Ovechkin (52 in 2005-06), Jeff Halpern (18 in 1999-00) and Richard Zednik (17 in 1997-98). \u2026 Washington has killed off 16 consecutive opposing power plays dating to March 7 at the Boston Bruins. \u2026 Bratt leads the Devils with four points (three goals, one assist) in three games against the Capitals this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin, who is one away from closing in on 1,000 career goals combined in the regular season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-554393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}