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Capitals Beat Blackhawks, 4-1

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Braden Holtby stopped 26 shots, Alex Ovechkin scored a goal in his return to the Washington lineup and the Capitals beat the punchless Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1, on Thursday night.

John Carlson, T.J. Oshie and Matt Niskanen also scored for the Capitals, who welcomed back Ovechkin following a one-game disciplinary absence.

Coming off a 3-0 loss to Philadelphia one night earlier, the Blackhawks trailed by three goals in this one before Viktor Svedberg got his first goal of the season at 3:13 of the third period. That ended a scoreless drought of 107 minutes, 46 seconds for the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Ovechkin sealed the victory at 14:18, scoring from the left side of the net after a back-and-forth with teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Ovechkin was benched Tuesday night in Washington's 5-0 loss to San Jose after missing practice that morning. He said he overslept after accidentally setting his alarm for 8:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 a.m.

The Capitals were obviously delighted to have their franchise scoring leader back on the ice, but they still had to do without center Niklas Backstrom, who has yet to play this season while recovering from hip surgery. Backstrom led the NHL in assists last season and tied for third with 33 points on the power play.

Oshie gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead at 8:48 of the first period with a shot from between the circles, his first goal with Washington since being traded from St. Louis in July. Chicago was 9 for 10 on the penalty kill before Oshie connected.

Carlson scored from just inside the blue line at 3:09 of the second period while Blackhawks goalie Scott Darling was screened by Marcus Johansson.

Niskanen made it 3-0 at 2:32 of the third period. Svedberg answered less than a minute later, ending Holtby's bid for his 21st career shutout.

Holtby had 22 saves through the opening 40 minutes. During that time, Chicago's best chance to score came midway in the second period, when Andrew Desjardins missed an open net from the left side at the end of a 2-on-1 with Andrew Shaw.

The Blackhawks are just over halfway done with a peculiar eight-game run against Eastern Conference foes to start the season. Chicago -- now 2-3-0 -- has never opened with this many successive out-of-conference games, and hadn't gone through a stretch like this at any point in the season since 1984-85.

Chicago has lost five straight in Washington since January 2006.

Notes: Chicago's Patrick Kane was held without a point after collecting three goals and three assists in his first four games. ... The Capitals recalled 21-year-old C Chandler Stephenson from Hershey of the AHL. The 2012 third-round pick saw plenty of action in his NHL debut but did not register a point. ... Chicago didn't take its first shot on goal until 9:17 of the first period and took only five SOG over the first 20 minutes. ... Kuznetsov played in his 100th NHL game, all with Washington.

(© 2015 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.)

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