Ovechkin scores 903rd career goal, Capitals edge Kings

WASHINGTON -- Alex Ovechkin scored his 903rd career goal for the Washington Capitals in a 2-1 win against the Los Angeles Kings at Capital One Arena on Monday.

Ovechkin made it 2-0 at 1:51 of the second period. He took a pass at the edge of the left circle from Connor McMichael, who was behind the net, and scored his third goal in four games.

“That line got caught in some difficult matchups for good portions of the game,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “But that’s a big goal for our team and ends up being the winner.”

Charlie Lindgren made 30 saves for the Capitals (9-8-2), who had lost four of five (1-3-1).

“He played really, really well and made some big saves that kept us in that game when we weren’t foot on the gas,” Capitals forward Nic Dowd said. “That’s a tough team to play and they’ve got a great record on the road.”

Anze Kopitar scored for the Kings (10-6-4), who had the first four games of their six-game road trip and had their 10-game road point streak end (8-0-2). Darcy Kuemper made 23 saves.

“We got better and better as the game went on and had good chances,” Kings forward Kevin Fiala said. “They had good chances as well, but Darcy kept us in there. Played well as always.”

Matt Roy gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead when he tipped forward Aliaksei Protas’ point shot past Kuemper from the low slot at 3:41 of the first period. It was Roy's first goal of the season.

“I was just down in the play kind of hunting, and 'Pro' was covering for me and it just kind of worked out that way,” Roy said. “It was a good heads-up play by him.”

Lindgren stopped Alex Laferriere on a short-handed breakaway at 11:10 of the first period to preserve the lead.

Lindgren had gone 0-3-1 in his previous four starts.

“You look at the first period, they didn’t have a ton of rubber at the net, but maybe the ones they had were above average quality,” Lindgren said. “That’s my job, to obviously keep the puck out of the net, and I'm thankful that I was able to do that tonight.”

After Ovechkin extended the lead, Kopitar pulled the Kings to within 2-1 at 13:27 of the second period. He tapped in a backdoor pass from Corey Perry at the left post on a power play.

“The first period was the difference in the game,” Los Angeles coach Jim Hiller said. “We had lots of energy in the second and the third, so there’s no reason why we didn’t start with the same energy. We made some mistakes and I guess we got what we deserved.”

NOTES: Ovechkin scored his 442nd goal at Capital One Arena, passing Gordie Howe (441 at Detroit Olympia) for the most regular-season goals scored at a single venue in NHL history. … Capitals defenseman John Carlson returned after missing one game because of an upper-body injury. He played in his 1,106th game, passing Nicklas Backstrom for the second-most in franchise history. Ovechkin is first at 1,510. … Kopitar won 13-of-19 face-offs.