Nicklas Backstrom scored the game-winner in the third round of the shootout as the visiting Washington Capitals rallied from a four-goal deficit to defeat the Vancouver Canucks, 6-5, on Friday night.

Backstrom fired a wrist shot inside the left post for the 11th shootout winner of his career. T.J. Oshie scored in the first round for the Capitals, but Elias Pettersson evened things up in the second round to set the stage for Backstrom's game-winner.

Michal Kempny and Evgeny Kuznetsov each scored two goals, and Lars Eller added a short-handed goal and an assist. Washington scored the final four goals of regulation over an eight-minute stretch that began with one second left in the second period. Rookie Ilya Samsonov had 29 saves.

Tim Schaller scored two goals, and Brock Boeser had a goal and an assist to lead the Vancouver. Pettersson and Jake Virtanen also scored goals, and Bo Horvat added two assists for the Canucks. Jacob Markstrom finished with 24 saves.

Washington, playing the second half of a back-to-back that started with a 4-3 overtime loss at Edmonton on Thursday night, jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 3:18 mark of the first period. Kuznetsov took a pass from Jakub Vrana while cutting in front of the net and beat Markstrom with a wrist shot on his blocker side.

Vancouver then scored five consecutive goals to go up 5-1. Boeser started the streak with a power-play goal at 5:33, and Schaller followed two minutes later with a short-handed goal to give the Canucks a 2-1 edge after the first period.

Pettersson made it 3-1 early in the second period with his third goal of the season. Schaller then batted in a rebound at 13:59 for his third of the year, and Virtanen followed 55 seconds with his second of the season.

But Kuznetsov cut it to 5-2 with a wrist shot that just beat the buzzer to end the second period and start Washington's comeback.

The Capitals scored three goals in the first 7:41 of the third period to tie it, 5-5. Eller got the first with a short-handed goal at 1:57, and Kempny followed with two goals just 2:44 apart. Both came on slap shots from the left point that beat Markstrom on his glove side, giving Kempny the first multi-goal game of his career.

--Field Level Media