Daniel Sedin puts Vancouver's third goal past Semyon Varlamov. (Photo: Associated Press)

The Vancouver Canucks showed why they are the best team in the NHL Friday night at the Verizon Center, defeating the Washington Capitals 4-2 and thoroughly outplaying the home team in the process.

It was a relatively quiet night for Vancouver's dynamic duo of Henrik and Daniel Sedin, but others on the Canucks were able to step up and damage the Caps' hopes of winning beyond recovery.

In particular, defensemen Christian Ehrhoff and Alexander Edler were the main culprits, as each man scored one goal and assisted on their counterpart's marker as Vancouver overturned an early deficit, and a Marcus Johansson goal at 9:21 of the third period was not enough to bring the Caps back, despite mounting Washington pressure on Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo as the clock ran down.

The first Vancouver was scored by Edler, who was found at the left point with a pass from behind the net by Jannik Hansen (who also had two assists on the evening) and fired a slap shot past Semyon Varlamov at 8:15 of the first period. That goal tied the score at 1-1 and Ehrhoff got the secondary assist.

Then it was Ehrhoff's turn to score at 3:46 of the second period, while Jason Chimera was serving a two-minute roughing penalty. A loose puck was picked up by Ryan Kesler in the left face-off circle and given to Ehrhoff. Like his fellow defenseman, Ehrhoff fired a slap shot past Varlamov (this time from the high slot) to give Vancouver a 2-1 lead. Edler, fittingly, got the secondary assist.

It all started so well for the Caps, as they took an early 1-0 lead at 5:50 of the first period with a goal from the fourth line. John Carlson left the puck for Boyd Gordon, who found a streaking Matt Hendricks with a lead pass. Hendricks, set free down the slot, fired a wrist shot under the left arm of  Luongo.

But Washington couldn't build on its advantage and Vancouver's night was made complete by a little piece of magic from Daniel Sedin, who scored his 26th goal of the season at 15:59 of the second to make the score 3-1. The goal was in part a comedy of Washington defensive errors, featuring a Jason Chimera turnover in the neutral zone and an ill-timed rush up the ice by Mike Green to lay a hit on Hansen. With Jeff Schultz in his wake, Sedin buried a wrister from close range past Varlamov for the eventual game-winning goal.

To give the knife a final twist, Sedin scored his second goal of the night into an empty net with 41.4 seconds remaing.