The Washington Capitals are rolling.
They’re 8-2-1 in their last 11 games, which coincides with when TJ Oshie returned from injury.
The offense is clicking, the defense is clicking, the power play and the penalty kill have both been excellent as of late.
The roster is still ravaged by injuries, with 8 or 9 regulars seemingly out of the lineup every single night.
But they’re making it work.
Alex Ovechkin has 7 goals in the last 4 games, and is on pace for 53 this season, as a 37-year-old. Last night in Chicago, he scored the 798th, 799th, and 800th goals of his legendary NHL career, making him just the 3rd player in NHL history to hit the 800-goal mark. His next goal will tie him with the great “Mr. Hockey” himself – the late Gordie Howe – for 2nd place all-time. He is just 94 goals behind No. 1 all-time – “The Great One” – Wayne Gretzky.
Fun fact about Gretzky VS. Ovi: Since turning 37 years old in September, Ovi has already scored a whopping 20 goals. Gretzky scored just 19 goals – TOTAL – from the time he turned 37 until the end of his career.
Last season, Ovi smashed the NHL record for most goals in a season by a player age 36 or older, becoming the 1st player in NHL history to score 50+ goals in a season at age 36 or older.
Ovi seems poised to smash that record again this season, and at the rate he’s continuing to score, will likely become the highest-scoring player the NHL has ever seen at each and every age milestone he crosses from here on out.
He actually got from 600 goals to 700 goals (155 games) and from 700 goals to 800 goals (162 games) faster than he got his first 100 goals of his career.
What an absolute freak of nature.
Also playing extremely well for the Caps has been backup goaltender Charlie Lindgren, who’s filling in for Darcy Kuemper while the latter has been out with an injury. Lindgren earned the NHL’s ‘1st Star Of The Week’ designation by posting a record of 4-0-0 with a 1.50 goals against average and a .949 save percentage. And that was before he also won his start against the Blackhawks, making him a perfect 5-0-0 since Kuemper went down.
Now, let’s wrap with the scoring from the Hawks game:
- Alex Ovechkin got the party started quickly, scoring his 1st of the night just 24 seconds into the game. Still not sure how he got the shot off with multiple Hawks players draped over him/trying to block it, but that’s probably one of the reasons why he has 800 goals. 1-0 Caps, assists to John Carlson & Conor Sheary.
- Ovi x2 – this time on the power play – again while fighting off multiple Hawks defenders in front of the net. You could tell right from the drop of the puck that the Hawks definitely were not wanting to be the team that Ovi would score his 800th goal against, as they had somewhere between 2-5 guys sticking to him like glue on every shift, all night long. But as we’ve seen over these last 18 seasons now, when Ovi decides that it’s time to score a goal, there’s really just not much that you can even do to stop it. 2-0 Caps, assists to Sheary & Sonny Milano.
- Tampa Bay Lightning salary cap casualty Tyler Johnson gets kind of a lucky one as the Caps sort of run over their own goalie. 2-1 Caps at the end of the 1st.
- Trevor van Riemsdyk deposits the puck into a hilariously wide-open cage as all 5 Hawks defenders and Hawks goalie Petr Mrazek are all entirely focused on not letting Alex Ovechkin score again. 3-1 Caps, assists to Ovechkin & Dylan Strome, and Ovi and TVR appeared to be having a pretty good laugh about just how wide-open Trevor was. Probably the easiest goal that TVR (or anyone) will ever score.
- Jonathan Toews scores a power play goal (technically the Caps deflected it into their own net, but Toews will take it); 3-2 Caps.
- Nic Dowd gets a nice goal off of what started off as a beautiful up-ice rush by Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who had a hell of a game. Aube-Kubel did most of the work to generate a great scoring chance in front for Garnet Hathaway which was denied, but Hathaway got the puck right back and fed it in front to a streaking Dowd, who buried it past Mrazek. 4-2 Caps, assists to Hathaway & Aube-Kubel.
- Then in the 3rd period, we saw hockey history, as Alex Ovechkin would score his 3rd of the game, 20th of the season, and the 800th of his NHL career. 5-2 Caps, assists to Anthony Mantha & Evgeny Kuznetsov, and the crowd (in Chicago!) was going absolutely berserk for the Great Eight. It was also the 29th hat trick of Ovechkin’s career (so far).
- Mantha scores off of a nice move and a wicked shot, touchdown Capitals, 6-2. Assist to Nick Jensen.
- Max Domi attempts to put a bit of lipstick on the pig, scoring with just over a minute left in the game for Chicago. 6-3 Caps.
- … But then Dmitry Orlov says take your lipstick and shove it, scoring on a cannon from the blue line just 33 seconds later. And there’s your extra point conversion, 7-3 Caps for the final score. Assists to Aube-Kubel & Hathaway.
The Caps’ next game is at home, Thursday, 7pm EST/4pm PST against the Dallas Stars.
