Philadelphia Flyers – Washington Capitals – 1:4
The current season of the NHL regular season is not easy for Russian forward and Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin: the longest scoring streak was just three games, and there are frequent goalscoring droughts. Before the game with Philadelphia, the forward could not distinguish himself for three meetings, which did not help at all to come close to Gordie Howe (801 career goals in the NHL) and Wayne Gretzky to reach his eternal record (894).
In the match against Philadelphia, Ovechkin also missed a clear goal-scoring opportunity: he knelt in front of his opponents’ empty net, but sent the puck to the crossbar.
However, luck smiled on Alexander the Great when, at the end of the third period, the Flyers decided to remove the goalkeeper two minutes before the end: the score was 1:2 not in their favor and the Pilots had to make up. But the opposite happened: Ovechkin took his chance this time and took advantage of the goalkeeper’s absence at the gate to score a double goal in just over a minute.
After that match, Ovechkin’s account had 795 goals, and only six goals remained for second place in the NHL top scorer race occupied by Gordie Howe.
In pursuit of Gretzky, the striker also crossed an important milestone: now 100 goals away from the first stage – 99.
Moreover, Ovechkin is approaching Gretzky’s record for goals against empty nets. Goals scored in the match against Philadelphia were the striker’s 50th and 51st goals in an empty goal, with five goals remaining before the famous Canadian’s record.
Finally, after this match, the Russian scored a few points and moved up to 13th place in the NHL in the number of career games. The striker currently owns 405 of these games, outpacing Ray Brook (404). The next goal of Alexander the Great is Paul Coffey (408 matches), and the same Gretzky leads this rating – 824 matches.
It is also worth noting that this is Ovechkin’s 1302th game, which put him in a clear second place among Russian players, beating Sergey Gonchar in the number of NHL games.
At the end of the match, Ovechkin added to his feelings by fighting with Canadian Philadelphia forward Travis Konecny. Tom didn’t like that the Russian rolled the puck into an empty net before he turned and looked sarcastically at the opponent. The opponents made several harsh statements to each other and then grappled next to the board.
Fortunately, the parties reconciled right after the match. “Maybe the situation wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Konechny admitted. – I thought Ovechkin was doing some kind of trick. We’re just tired of being defeated.”
“There was such a reaction because they lost. They have character, they have a good team,” Ovechkin said calmly. “Of course, they were upset by the defeat.”
Russian forward Evgeny Kuznetsov provided two assists in this fight and assisted Ovechkin for the second time, helping him score a double goal into an empty net.
Now Kuznetsov has 17 assists this season, which is the best result in Washington.
This allowed him to reach a clean eighth place in assists in capitals history – helping his teammates distinguish themselves 360 times over his entire career with the team.
Other achievements of Russian players in the NHL
Kirill Kaprizov continues to drag the Minnesota Wild forward. In the next game of the regular season, the striker did not save his team from defeat – the “savages” lost to the Calgary Flames with a score of 3: 5 – but this did not prevent the Russians from breaking the record.
He opened the score by extending the scoring streak to 13 games and the goal streak to seven games. No one else in the wild has done this before.
Currently Kaprizov is the holder of the longest goal in the series this season. Nikita Kucherov and Jason Robertson of Dallas are one game behind six games.
New York Rangers forward Artemy Panarin also made a show in the match played with the Vegas Golden Knights. The win went to the Blueshirts with a score of 5:1, and the Russian added an assistant hat-trick to three of their team’s goals. Moreover, the first transfer was a turning point for him: thanks to this scoring pass, Panarin has surpassed 600 points throughout his entire career in the NHL.
Since Panarin’s debut in the National Hockey League in the 2015/16 season, only three hockey players have scored more – Connor McDavid (749 – 263 +486), Leon Draisaitl (651 – 270 +381) and Patrick Kane (643) – 229 + 414).
Gordie Howe was mentioned today as part of the sniper race, but it is worth remembering that the combination “score-fight” – “Gordie Howe hat-trick” is also named after the hockey player.
That’s what Russian Edmonton Oilers forward Klim Kostin did in his game against the Arizona Coyotes (he eventually won the team 8:2).
He started with an assist for Derek Ryan; came forward at the beginning of the third period; and less than a minute before the siren, the Russian got into a fight with Zach Cassian.