Capitals rally, beat Pens, 4-3, at Mellon

Washington had to fight off three Pittsburgh power plays to earn the win.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Boyd Gordon scored a delayed goal in the third period to complete Washington’s four-goal comeback and the Capitals shook off three Pittsburgh power play goals and another big night against them by Evgeni Malkin to rally for a 4-3 victory on Thursday night.

Gordon won a faceoff with Sidney Crosby, then snapped off a wrist shot that hit the pipe in the back of the net and rebounded back onto the ice so quickly, the referees initially waved it off.

The teams played for another two minutes before play was stopped, time that was restored after a video replay showed Gordon’s shot going in at 15:43 for his first goal of the season.

It was a major letdown for the Penguins, who got a goal and two assists from Malkin in his personal matchup with Russian rival Alex Ovechkin, who was scoreless, but couldn’t hold a 3-0 lead with Marc-Andre Fleury in net.

The Penguins were 10-1-1 in their previous 12 against the Capitals and Fleury, who made 26 saves, had been 7-0 against them in seven starts.

Alexander Semin had a goal and an assist as Washington won its third in a row. The Penguins lost their third in four games as Crosby didn’t get a goal for the fifth consecutive game.

The Penguins led 3-0 less than two minutes into the second on power play goals by Malkin, Alex Goligoski and Miroslav Satan, with Satan scoring with a two-man advantage, only to be shut out the rest of the game as Jose Theodore made 23 saves. Theodore has a 13-4-1-1 career record against them.

Michael Nylander won a faceoff to set up Semin’s goal early in the third, then scored himself exactly 10 minutes into the period to make it 3-3 following a Crosby turnover.

Crosby tried to make a no-look pass into the offensive zone, only to have the Capitals pick it up and start a rush the other way.

Tomas Fleischmann had scored off another Pittsburgh turnover, by defenseman Brooks Orpik, with 5:45 gone in the second after the Penguins had dominated play with the help of several poor Washington penalties.

After Goligoski and Malkin scored less than five minutes apart in the first, the Capitals drew a too many men on the ice penalty with four seconds left in the period.

John Erskine’s delay of game penalty 24 seconds into the second created the 5-on-3, and Satan put his stick on a Petr Sykora follow-up shot inches before it crossed the goal line.

Ovechkin didn’t get a goal for the second successive game despite getting five shots, yet the Capitals won both games.

Ovechkin, last year’s scoring champion, and Malkin, the runner-up to Ovechkin, were Russian Olympic teammates and friends at Turin in 2006, but they’ve since become rivals who play with an unaccustomed physicality when they oppose each other, often going out of their way to try to deliver a big hit on the other.

Sometimes that aggressiveness goes over the line, with Malkin drawing a boarding penalty for an unnecessary hit on Semin not long after Fleischmann scored, though Washington didn’t score on that power play.