Thompson, Tuch help Sabres outlast Ovechkin, Capitals with 8-5 win

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Ovechkin scores 890th goal, moves 5 away from breaking Gretzky's record

Alex Ovechkin scores on a fantastic redirection for his 890th career goal.

Updated: Mar 30, 2025, 06:33 pm

WASHINGTON -- — Alex Tuch and Tage Thompson each scored twice and the Buffalo Sabres beat the Washington Capitals 8-5 on Sunday.

Ryan McLeod, Sam Lafferty, Jack Quinn and Peyton Krebs also scored for the Sabres, winners of four of the last five.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 890th career goal to move within five of passing Wayne Gretzky, Jakob Chychrun had two goals and Aliaksei Protas and Pierre-Luc Dubois also scored for the Capitals, who have lost three straight games for the second time this season.

James Reimer extended his winning streak to four games, stopping 24 of 29 shots to advance to 13-5-6.

Meanwhile, Logan Thompson stopped 15 of 22 shots in the loss to drop to 31-5-6 on the season.

Takeaways

Sabres: Tage Thompson struck twice on the power play for his fourth goal in as many games and now leads Buffalo with 38 goals this season. The Sabres now have power-play goals in back-to-back games and three of the last five overall.

Capitals: Chychrun continues to be a valuable pickup for D.C., as he hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career with another multigoal outing. He's the first Capitals defenseman to record at least 20 goals in a season since Mike Green in 2008-09.

Key moment

Quinn capitalized on a turnover and broke away, beating Logan Thompson for the eventual game-winning goal.

Key stat

After playing for just under three minutes in the second period, Ovechkin scored on a deflection. He has 37 goals on the season, tied for the fifth-most in the NHL despite missing 16 games with a broken fibula.

Up next

The Sabres visit Ottawa on Tuesday, the same night the Capitals play at Boston.

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