WASHINGTON: Alex Ovechkin scored in overtime as the Washington Capitals picked up their 50th win of the season and became the first NHL team to clinch a playoff spot, beating the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 Tuesday night.

Ovechkin scored his seventh game-winner of the season 1:38 into overtime after Washington sealed its eighth playoff appearance in nine seasons by picking up a point.

Justin Williams also scored for Washington, which got 25 saves from Braden Holtby.

Hurricanes goaltender Eddie Lack stopped 29 of the 31 shots he faced. Jordan Staal scored for Carolina, which had its dim playoff hopes take another hit.

Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang scored the only goal of the shootout with a pretty backhand past New York Islanders rookie goalie Jean-Francois Berube to lift the Penguins to a 2-1 home win.

Marc-Andre Fleury stopped Frans Nielsen, Kyle Okposo and John Tavares in the shootout as Pittsburgh strengthened its hold on the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.

Fleury finished with 25 saves for the Penguins. Chris Kunitz scored his 14th goal of the season in the 800th game of his career. Sidney Crosby picked up the secondary assist to extend his points streak to nine games.

In Philadelphia, Michael Raffl scored two goals to help secure the Flyers a key win in their playoff push, 4-3 over Detroit.

The Flyers have 78 points and pulled within one point of the Red Wings for the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff berth.

The Flyers dominated the Red Wings early and outshot Detroit 23-3 in the first period. They held on after Detroit’s Tomas Tatar scored with 3:46 left in the game to make it 4-3.

Vincent Trochek scored a goal and set up one by Jiri Hudler as Florida won 4-1 at injury-riddled Montreal.

Nick Bjugstad and Aleksander Barkov also scored for Florida, which has won three of its past four games to stay in the tight battle for first place in the Atlantic Division with Tampa Bay and Boston.

The Bruins lost 3-2 at San Jose when Joonas Donskoi scored a tiebreaking power-play goal with 13:23 remaining after an offensive zone penalty by Boston’s Jimmy Hayes.

Brent Burns helped set up Donskoi’s goal and scored one of his own, tying Sandis Ozolinsh’s franchise records for goals and points in a season by a defensemen.

Melker Karlsson also scored as San Jose won consecutive home games for the first time in two months to move within one point of Anaheim for second place in the Pacific Division.

In Dallas, Tyler Toffoli scored again a night after ending a long goal drought as Los Angeles beat the Stars 5-2. The Kings won for the fourth time in five games and are up to 89 points, two behind Dallas and St. Louis atop the West and four points clear of Anaheim in the Pacific Division.

In other games, Ben Smith and Connor Carrick scored their first goals of the season to help the Maple Leafs beat Tampa Bay 4-1 in Toronto, while Erik Karlsson scored at 4:29 of overtime to lift Ottawa to a 3-2 home win over Minnesota, which has a one-point lead on the Colorado Avalanche for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.