Alex Tuch had two goals and an assist, Jack Quinn had a goal and two assists, and Tage Thompson scored twice for the Sabres (31-36-6), who are 4-1-0 in their past five games. Reimer made 24 saves.

Jakob Chychrun scored twice for the Capitals (47-17-9), who have lost three straight (0-2-1). Logan Thompson made 15 saves.

After Ovechkin made it a two-goal game, Pierre-Luc Dubois pulled the Capitals within 6-5 at 14:03 when he deflected Ovechkin’s point shot past Reimer on a power play, but Tuch deflected Mattias Samuelsson’s shot past Thompson to make it 7-5 at 15:34.

Peyton Krebs scored an empty-net goal at 19:36 for the 8-5 final.

Chychrun put the Capitals ahead 1-0 at 10:06 of the first period. Reimer made a pad save on Ovechkin’s slap shot from the point, but Chychrun was there to finish the rebound.

Thompson tied it 1-1 at 12:49, scoring from the left post off the rebound of JJ Peterka’s shot from the right circle on a power play.

Ryan McLeod gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead at 2:14 of the second period when he worked a give-and-go with Quinn and poked the puck past Thompson.

Chychrun tied it 2-2 just 32 seconds later, scoring on a wrist shot from the left face-off dot at 2:46.

Tuch put the Sabres ahead 3-2 at 5:17, deflecting Connor Clifton’s shot past Thompson.

Sam Lafferty made it 4-2 at 11:52 when he cut across the slot on the rush and lifted a backhand over Thompson’s glove.

Aliaksei Protas pulled the Capitals within 4-3, scoring short-handed on a breakaway 37 seconds into the third period.

Thompson responded to make it 5-3 at 1:28, scoring a power-play goal from the left circle off a pass from Jason Zucker.

Quinn increased the lead to 6-3 at 5:52 when he stole the puck from Chychrun and scored on a breakaway.