Washington left winger Thomas Fleischmann tries to squeeze a shot past Toronto Maple Leafs' goaltender Vesa Toskala (left) despite pressure from Leaf's defenceman Luke Schenn on Saturday night. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Fans packing the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night were hoping to see high-flying Alex Ovechkin put the old disk in the net a few times.

What they got from the Washington star was a solid dose of old-time hockey on the way to a 2-1 victory by the Capitals over the host Toronto Maple Leafs.

Defencemen Karl Alzner and Milan Jurcina, the former with his first-ever and the latter his second on the season, handled the scoring while Ovechkin zipped around the ice dealing out hits, creating turnovers and making a pain of himself.

Especially to Luke Schenn, Toronto's rookie defender, who was hit — not that hard — by Ovechkin early in the second period and left the game with what was later described as a lower body injury.

Coach Ron Wilson said afterward the youngster would be out at least two weeks and would be reassessed on Sunday.

The club also lost forward Niklas Hagman in the second but his injury is not considered as serious.

"Luke logs a lot of minutes and so does Haggy," said Wilson, whose team is just back from a long road trip. "We had to go to Plan B and C ...

"You're a little tired and you want to play almost four lines and certainly six defencemen. We couldn't do that."

Toronto's only goal came from Nik Antropov early in the third period that tied the game 1-1 for just a minute before Jurcina came up with the winner.

Washington, decimated by injuries with nine regulars out of the lineup, improved to 15-9-3 while the Leafs dropped to 9-12-3.

Game opens up

Trailing 1-0 into the third and with Ovechkin in the box, the Leafs used the offensive skills of Matt Stajan and Antropov to tie the game.

Stajan came over the blueline, shifted to his left just slightly to pull the defender aside and dropped a pass to the big winger who blasted one by Brent Johnson at 6:12.

The goaltender had seemed a bit shaken up making a close-in save a minute earlier, but he stayed in the game.

"Just a little bit of a hip problem, it wasn't bad," Johnson told Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night in Canada. "It's not bad, it's sore but it will go away with some stretching."

Mostly a career backup, Johnson has been getting a lot of work this season in front of free-agent signee Jose Théodore as coach Bruce Boudreau looks for a hot hand.

"I guess we'll just do what the coach wants us to do," Johnson said. "It's one of those things where you win you stay in, I guess."

Exactly a minute after the game was tied, the Caps had the lead back thanks to a hard shot from the point by Jurcina and a two-man distraction in front of Toskala that kept the goalie from seeing the puck until too late.

Ovechkin almost scored late in the third but the puck went just off the post with the forward already celebrating.

Rookie finds the range

A scoreless game into the second period finally produced a goal thanks to the rookie Alzner.

With the puck behind the net, Ovechkin bumped the Leafs' Ian White enough to cause an errant pass out to the blueline.

Alzner walked in and put a wrist shot to the glove side of Vesa Toskala and the goaltender waved at it as the puck went by for a 1-0 Caps' lead at 1:41 of the middle frame.

Washington looked to be up 2-0 later in the second when a scramble in front ended with Brooks Laich directing the puck in with his skate.

A couple of looks at the replay by league officials in the Toronto office and the goal was overturned.