Canucks score 4 straight, hold off Capitals to end 11-game slide

VANCOUVER -- Brock Boeser had a goal and assist, and the Vancouver Canucks scored four straight times en route to ending their 11-game losing streak with a 4-3 comeback victory over the Washington Capitals at Rogers Arena on Wednesday.

“I just told myself you've got to put the hard hat on and work as hard as you can right now,” Boeser said. “Everyone's got to do it. We need the whole team to do it. And that's how you get out of these slumps and stuff. But we can't be satisfied. It's going to be each and every game. We've got to make sure that everyone's working hard and sticking together.”

Drew O'Connor, Evander Kane and Filip Hronek scored, and Jake DeBrusk and David Kampf each had two assists for the Canucks (17-28-5), who ended an 0-9-2 slide with their first win since Dec. 29 at the Seattle Kraken. Kevin Lankinen made 29 saves.

It was Vancouver's first home win since Dec. 6, ending an 0-6-2 stretch with the fifth win in 22 games (5-14-3) at Rogers Arena this season.

The victory came after Canucks coach Adam Foote called out his veterans following a 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders on Monday.

“I think it’s really important and it's the truth,” Boeser said. “We can't have that bad body language and the negative attitude on the bench, you can't show that to the young guys. We've got to be good leaders and good role models and be positive. And I thought we were tonight, and I felt that that helped us play a better hockey game.”

Dylan Strome had two goals and an assist, and Justin Sourdif had a goal and assist for the Capitals (24-21-6), who have lost four straight and five of six (1-5-0). John Carlson had two assists to reach 600 in his NHL career, and Logan Thompson made 21 saves.

“Our season is hanging in the balance here,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “We're going to have to dig in and give everything we possibly have and play like we're in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I hate using that in the regular season, and you never want to drum that up in January and say it's like a playoff game, but we are getting very, very close to teetering on if we don't get results soon, we're going to be in a huge, huge hole.”

Tom Wilson had an assist in his return for Washington after missing eight games with a lower-body injury, helping the Capitals go up 2-0 in the first period.

“Maybe you take the foot off the pedal for a minute, and they got a couple bounces and jump right back in it,” Wilson said. “After that, we got to do a better job at kind of flipping the momentum back.”

Strome gave Washington a 1-0 lead 23 seconds into a 5-on-3 power play at 8:25 of the first period. Carlson passed from the top of the right circle to Wilson at the left side of the net, and he made a quick, short pass across the crease, leaving Strome with an empty net.

Strome made a similar pass from a bit further out to set up Sourdif’s goal that made it 2-0 at 9:43 before the second penalty expired. After taking a cross-ice pass from Alex Ovechkin while cutting down the right slot, Strome passed back across the crease to Sourdif, who had it bounce off his skate before knocking it into the empty net with Lankinen again stranded.

“The best part about it was how our answer was after being down 2-0,” Foote said. “Really calm and I give a lot of credit to the guys for not getting rattled.”

Boeser cut it to 2-1 at 13:32, scoring for the second time in four games after going 21 straight without a goal. He snapped a quick shot over Thompson’s blocker from inside the bottom of the left face-off circle after a pass from Kampf below the goal line.

Kane tied it 2-2 at 18:22, scoring for the second straight game by finishing on a sharp angle shot that deflected off the skate of Capitals defenseman Matt Roy on the back door.

Vancouver failed to convert a 5-on-3 for 1:14 during the second period, but O’Connor put the Canucks ahead 3-2 less than three minutes later at 8:58. He finished on another Kampf pass from below the goal line with a quick shot under the blocker arm of Thompson from the bottom of the left circle.

Hronek extended it to 4-2 at 11:43 when he jumped into the rush with the teams playing 4-on-4 and finished off a 2-on-1 backdoor pass from DeBrusk.

“It's big after how many losses we had,” Hronek said. “We didn't give up. We just have to take positives from this game and just keep doing what we did today. Just keep battling.”

Strome scored his second goal of the game to make it 4-3 at 16:37 of the third period on a rebound scramble with Thompson pulled for the extra attacker. But Washington only had one more shot the rest of the way.

“We showed some good character,” Lankinen said. “That's just the relentless mindset that we have to have. No matter what happens on the ice, we just keep hammering our own game. Sometimes there's stuff that you can't control, so you don't want to put too much energy on that. The only thing you can control is your own performance, your own mindset.”

NOTES: Carlson is the 11th defenseman in NHL history to record 600 assists with one team, and the fifth American defenseman to reach the milestone, following Phil Housley (894), Brian Leetch (781), Chris Chelios (763) and Gary Suter (641). … Vancouver’s 11-game winless streak was the third longest in team history, two short of the record of 13 during the 1973-74 season (0-10 with three ties) … Canucks center Teddy Blueger had three shots on goal and four blocked shots in 18:24 of ice time in his return after missing three months due to a lower-body injury sustained in Washington on Oct. 19.