The Hart of the city

Alex Ovechkin’s performance last night was all Hart.

Ovechkin continued to make his case for league MVP honors with two goals, including one after a blocked shot forced him to the dressing room late in the second period, to help the Washington Capitals fend off the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 last night at a sold-out Verizon Center.

His second of the night came on a power play 7:50 into the final period and put his team in front 2-1. Ovechkin unleashed a wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle past Tampa Bay goaltender Karri Ramo for his 65th tally of the season.

Photos: Caps on cusp of playoffs

It was his 11th game-winner, which gives him the outright NHL lead to go along with his comfortable cushion in goals (13 more than Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk) and points (six more than Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin).

“It is amazing the shot he’s got,” said Washington goaltender Cristobal Huet, who made 18 saves for his eighth straight win. “Ramo was on top of his game, but that shot was pretty tough to save.”

A little more than a minute after Ovechkin put the Caps in front, they had to kill off a double minor assessed to defenseman John Erskine for high-sticking Filip Kuba, but Washington actually outshot Tampa Bay 2-1 in the four minutes.

Boyd Gordon provided the insurance marker with 3:17 left when he backhanded a rebound past Ramo for his seventh goal of the season, and defenseman Tom Poti added an empty-netter with 1:08 remaining.

“I thought we were all a little tight until [Ovechkin’s second] goal sort of let the air out of our balloon, and we played a little bit better — more like we can — once we got the lead,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said.

It was the team’s sixth straight victory and 10th in 11 games. The win actually vaulted the Caps past idle Philadelphia into eighth place — at least for a day — in the Eastern Conference with 92 points. The Flyers have 91 points and play host to New Jersey tonight.

It also moves Washington into a tie with Carolina atop the Southeast Division, and a loss by the Hurricanes tonight to Florida combined with a win by the Caps against those same Panthers tomorrow would give Washington the division title. Carolina holds the wins tiebreaker for the division lead.

One night after yielding a goal in the opening minute en route to a 6-2 drubbing by Carolina, Tampa Bay scored early against the Caps. After the puck squirted free from a scrum in front of Huet, Kuba pinched in and scooped it into the open net 39 seconds into the contest.

The Caps thought they tied the game a few moments later. Brooks Laich put a shot past Ramo at 1:59, but the goal was waved off after Tomas Fleischmann pushed Lightning defenseman Matt Smaby into the goaltender.

“The explanation was it was incidental contact and the goalie didn’t have time to recover,” Boudreau said. “He said in that case you wipe out the goal and there is faceoff in the corner.”

Washington knotted the score 12:01 into the opening period. Viktor Kozlov outmuscled defenseman Alexandre Picard along the right wall and drove to the net. His shot was rebuffed, but Ovechkin tapped the rebound off Picard’s skate and into the cage.

Ovechkin knelt down to block a shot late in the second period, and it hit the outside of his right knee. During the next timeout he hopped back onto the ice to test the knee, but he went right back to the bench and limped toward the dressing room. Ovechkin returned for the start of the final period and pronounced himself OK after the game.

Ramo was spectacular in the first 20 minutes and prevented the Caps from putting the contest away early. Washington outshot Tampa Bay 20-5 in the period, and Ramo made several stops from point-blank range before finishing the night with 36 saves.

The game took a bit of an ugly turn in the closing seconds. Tampa Bay’s Doug Janik hit Fleischmann in the corner away from the play, and plenty of shoving and talking ensued. After the next faceoff Matt Bradley earned a sound victory in a fight with Junior Lessard. The Lightning ended up with 41 minutes of penalties in the final 23 seconds, including three misconduct infractions.

“You’ve got to expect that — they were frustrated, and their season is done,” defenseman Mike Green said. “We kept our cool, and Brads took care of business out there, so that’s that.”

Note — Defenseman Shaone Morrisonn was out of the lineup with an upper body injury. Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said Morrisonn is “week-to-week,” and Steve Eminger replaced Morrisonn against the Lightning.