Georgiev makes 29 saves for Colorado; Dubois scores for Washington
WASHINGTON -- Miles Wood scored the go-ahead goal in the third period for the Colorado Avalanche in a 2-1 win against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Thursday.
Mikko Rantanen also scored, and Alexandar Georgiev made 28 saves after missing two games with an upper-body injury for the Avalanche (11-9-0), who have won five of six.
“Our team’s found a little bit of rhythm here recently,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Hasn’t been perfect, that’s for sure. We needed [Georgiev] tonight more than I would have liked, but we found a way to get a win as a team and I think all four lines are contributing.”
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored for the Capitals (13-5-1), who had their five-game point streak (4-0-1) snapped. Logan Thompson made 25 saves.
“I thought it was just average tonight all the way around,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “The second [period] hurts a lot. … They controlled play, and they could’ve had three or four. They were on us pretty good.”
Washington was without captain Alex Ovechkin, who will miss 4-6 weeks after fracturing his left fibula in the third period of a 6-2 win against the Utah Hockey Club on Monday.
Dubois gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead at 17:04 of the first period. Tom Wilson got to a loose puck at the bottom of the right circle and found Dubois in front, who redirected the puck past Georgiev.
“We had a couple new combinations, guys maybe feeling each other out a bit,” Wilson said. “But I think we can definitely hold onto pucks and create a bit more offensively because the best way to defend that team is to hold onto the puck and I think we didn’t do enough for the most part tonight.”
Rantanen made it 1-1 on the power play at 14:19 of the second when his centering pass deflected in off the skate of Capitals defenseman Matt Roy. Rantanen has nine goals in his past eight games.
“I think our skating was better,” Rantanen said of the second period. “We started to play fast. ‘Georgie’ made some big saves in the second. In the offensive zone, we got some more time, more shots on net, more chances.”
Georgiev poked the puck away from Connor McMichael to thwart a breakaway chance late in the period.
Wood gave the Avalanche a 2-1 lead at 3:29 of the third period when he deflected Cale Makar’s shot from above the left circle past Thompson.
“‘Woody’ was in a great spot, created that play, then [Parker Kelly] with a nice drop pass and everybody goes to the net,” Makar said. “Just trying to get shots through. When we get guys to the net, good things happen.”
McMichael hit the crossbar after Thompson was pulled for an extra attacker with just over one minute remaining.
“Sometimes those bounces don’t go in, and the bounces went against us tonight,” Thompson said. “It’s unfortunate. We were there the whole game, and we had a great late push the last couple minutes of the game.”
NOTES: Rantanen scored his 97th career power-play goal to break a tie with Nathan MacKinnon (96) for the fifth-highest total in franchise history. … Washington had scored at least five goals in each of its past three games entering Thursday.
