WASHINGTON — The Washington Capitals returned home wanting to quickly move on from a two-game slide on the road, but they brought some bad habits back with them that proved costly in what turned out to be an ugly loss against the Buffalo Sabres.

Alex Ovechkin continued his GR8 Chase, Jakob Chychrun scored twice and Aliaksei Protas had a shorthanded goal, but Washington's lack of discipline resulted in an ugly 8-5 loss to the Sabres.

Here are all the takeaways as D.C. dropped its third straight contest:

It wasn't a pretty night for the Capitals, who struggled defensively and couldn't hold off the Sabres' young offense. Tage Thompson struck twice on the power play, as Pierre-Luc Dubois and Washington failed to stay disciplined and took a total of five penalties.

Though Jakob Chychrun had tied it in the second period, Buffalo quickly took back the lead and never looked back, and appeared to always have a response at the ready.

Logan Thompson didn't have his strongest showing, surrendering seven goals on 22 shots, but the defense in front of him left a lot to be desired to boot.

After appearing to be benched in the second period, Alex Ovechkin came back with a vengeance, deflecting home his 890th career goal to give the Capitals some life in the third period and move within five of breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time record.

Ovechkin got to the front of the net and deflected Rasmus Sandin's shot past James Reimer to pull his team within two and spark some life into D.C. He now has 37 goals on the season, the fifth-most in the NHL despite missing 16 games due to a broken fibula.

The 39-year-old also picked up two assists and has scored three goals in his last seven games.

Jakob Chychrun and Aliaskei Protas also hit some impressive milestones in the loss, with Chychrun scoring two to hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career and Protas scoring shorthanded to hit 30 goals.