The Washington Capitals rolled into Edmonton on Tuesday night and showed why they have the best record in the NHL.

Though the Oilers more than doubled the visitors in scoring opportunities, the Caps were able to capitalize on their chances, getting three pucks past Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner on 14 shots. Logan Thompson was rock-solid on the other side of the ice, turning aside 30 of 32 shots for the first win against Edmonton of his career.

Leon Draisaitl opened the scoring for the Oilers a few minutes into the first period, and he found Corey Perry for a one-timer goal in the third frame, but it wasn’t enough to beat Washington’s three goals.

The win moved the Capitals eight points clear of the Oilers in the league standings with the same amount of games played. Washington sits in first place with 69 points on the season, four up on the Winnipeg Jets and seven up on both the Vegas Golden Knights and Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Oilers will look to get back into the win column on Thursday when they host a rematch against the Vancouver Canucks. Edmonton was dropped by a score of 3-2 in Vancouver on Saturday and both Connor McDavid and Tyler Myers were handed three-game suspensions for cross-checking late in the game.

“I thought we played pretty solid defensively, maybe a couple of line rushes against that we could’ve shored up,” Perry said. “But for the most part, you keep them to under 15 shots — they’re a top team in the league. When you do that, you normally come away with two points. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one at the end and we’ll move on to the next one.”

“Obviously, it doesn’t always go your way,” Zach Hyman said. “If you have more chances, sometimes the other team gets the better of you. That’s why, in the playoffs, you play seven games, right? They’re a really good team. They’re dangerous off the rush. They had a couple of rush goals and they were able to capitalize. Obviously, we fell short.”

“We’re a pretty good team in here and we’ve got a lot of good players,” Perry said. “He’d been out earlier in the year and we took care of business. You can’t fill his spot, but you can adapt. I think guys adapted.”

“We were missing the best player in the world. It’s a little bit of a different look,” Hyman said of the power play. “I thought we had some looks, and we’ll have two more games without him here, so a little bit more practice on it and it should be good.”

“I think that’s one of our better games that we played defensively. I don’t think we gave up very much,” Knoblauch said. “A couple off the rush, yes, but we’re never going to play a perfect game. The other team is going to get scoring chances, but I don’t think there were very many tonight.”

“I thought we had plenty of opportunities to score, especially early in the game, and just couldn’t buy one,” Knoblauch added.

“I know there were some parts and periods of it where we weren’t as clean as we like, but once again this team and the way we’ve done all year long,” said Capitals coach Spencer Carbery. “We find a way to grind through and kill off a penalty in the second period. To me, the second period was what I was most impressed with. The second period has been an issue for us, Edmonton is one of the best second-period teams in the NHL and we get out of that period 1-0.”

“It was a lot of fun, I don’t think I ever beat these guys,” Thompson said. “It’s a great atmosphere, it kind of felt like a playoff game.

“Credit to the guys, we stuck with it and that’s kind of been the way the whole year. It was a huge two points to start this trip.”

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