NEW YORK (AP) Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin scored his second goal of the game and the 499th of his career at 1:25 of overtime to give the Capitals a 4-3 win at the New York Rangers on Saturday.
The victory widened the sizable gap between the NHL’s Metropolitan Division’s top two teams to 16 points.
Elsewhere, Minnesota beat faltering Dallas, St. Louis won in a shootout against Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh won at Montreal.
Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom forced overtime by sliding the rebound of a shot under Henrik Lundqvist with just 5.7 seconds left in regulation.
In overtime, Washington goaltender Braden Holtby stopped Rick Nash in close and then combined with defenseman Nate Schmidt to stop Derek Stephan on the rebound attempt.
Ovechkin got the puck, skated the length of the ice on the left side before cutting across the middle and beating Lundqvist. Ovechkin will try to reach the 500-goal milestone on Sunday at home against Ottawa.
Williams also scored for the Capitals while Viktor Stalberg, Kevin Hayes and Oscar Lindberg scored for the Rangers.
Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk made 34 saves to help the Wild win 2-1 at Dallas.
Thomas Vanek and Ryan Carter had goals in the second period for the Wild. Dallas didn’t score until Jamie Benn netted with 3:13 left.
Dubnyk stopped another shot by Benn with 1:00 left.
The Western Conference-leading Stars have lost four of their past five games.
St. Louis’ Troy Brouwer got the deciding goal in the seventh round of the shootout to give the Blues a 2-1 victory over Los Angeles.
Alex Pietrangelo tied it in the second period for the Blues, who snapped a five-game losing skid; three of which came past regulation.
Anze Kopitar scored for the Kings, whose lead atop the Pacific Division was trimmed to nine points.
Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 33 shots to lead the Penguins to a 3-1 victory against Montreal.
Bryan Rust scored his first goal of the season to put Pittsburgh ahead in the second period, and Patric Hornqvist and Eric Fehr also scored for the Penguins.
P.K. Subban scored for Montreal; his first goal for 34 games.
Ottawa’s Mark Stone scored 4:22 into overtime to lift the Senators past Boston 2-1.
Stone was able to put in his own rebound over a sprawling Tuuka Rask after being stopped the first time on a wraparound attempt.
Mika Zibanejad also scored for the Senators while David Pastrnak got Boston’s goal.
Philadelphia’s Steve Mason stopped 20 shots for his third shutout of the season and led the Flyers over the New York Islanders 4-0.
Arizona’s Louis Domingue became the first rookie goaltender in franchise history to win three straight games as the Coyotes defeated Nashville 4-0.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov scored 3:50 into overtime to lift the Lightning over Vancouver 3-2.
San Jose posted its most lopsided shutout for 15 years by beating Toronto 7-0.
Carolina’s Jordan Staal scored in overtime to give the Hurricanes a 4-3 win against Columbus, after having given up a three-goal lead.
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