Wilson had a goal and two assists, and Dylan Strome had two assists for the Capitals (3-1-0), who have won three straight. Logan Thompson made 17 saves.
“He’s unbelievable,” Thompson said of Wilson. “I’ve said it many times, he’s the heart and soul of this team. When we don’t really have the best start, a guy like Tom is somebody we can build momentum off of, whether it’s a hit or a big goal, and he was huge tonight for us.”
Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves for the Lightning (1-2-1), who won 4-3 at the Boston Bruins on Monday. Nikita Kucherov had an assist for his 997th NHL point in his 807th game.
“Listen, we gave ourselves a chance to win,” Cooper said. “And for a large portion of this game I really liked the way we played. You can make mistakes in games and make more mistakes than we did tonight and win games, and sometimes you just make a couple and it doesn’t go your way.”
Guentzel gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 7:06 of the first period with his first goal of the season. Anthony Cirelli won a face-off back to Ryan McDonagh at the left point, and McDonagh passed down to Guentzel, who scored through the five-hole on a one-timer from the right hash marks.
“Our starts have been really good this year,” Point said. “It’s just trying to maintain that the whole game.”
