Washington Capitals 5-2 Toronto Maples Leafs
“Capital” scored a major victory over the mighty “Toronto”, which was the leader in the NHL Eastern Conference.
Alexander Ovechkin spent 18 minutes on the ice but was unable to stand out with effective moves. He aims to match Gordie Howe’s 801 NHL regular season goals with Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record 894. However, in the last meeting, the Russian fired only two shots at the target.
But there were no problems with strong moves: Great Eight had six hits, and one of them will forever remain in the memory of Toronto fans.
Ovechkin shouldered the body of Canadian defender Conor Timmins so strongly that he fell with his entire body overboard and fell headlong into the bench.
Arena greeted this event with a joyous roar – the “Washington” captain appropriately blamed his fans and crew.
But the Toronto players were not going to leave it unanswered, and soon striker Alexander Kerfoot hit Ovechkin’s leg with all his might and rushed towards him from behind. This technique caused a minor fight and the Canadian received a two-minute suspension.
However, Ovechkin did not react violently to this rudeness and was mutually removed.
The experience of the Great Eight does not apply – this match was already 1307 for him in the NHL, which allowed the Russians to bypass the famous Swede Daniel Sedin and rise to 64th place in the number of games.
The absolute record belongs to Canadian Patrick Marlo, who held 1779 meetings.
With Ovechkin keeping the score quiet, the main protagonist of the match was Swedish “Washington” defender Eric Gustafsson, who has not scored a goal this season but unexpectedly scored a hat-trick.
He became the third defender in the history of the Capitals to score three goals in one game. Earlier, a similar feat was presented to Kevin Hatcher in 1993 and Sergey Gonchar in 2000.
Like a true captain, Ovechkin shouted “YES!” to the entire arena. he shouted in support of Gustafsson. After the third goal and in honor of a long hat-trick, he began demanding the spectators to throw their hats on the ice, according to a long tradition.
However, without Russian involvement, “Washington” still could not achieve victory: Evgeny Kuznetsov, who entered the third line on the ice, gave Gustaffson two assists, making it a historic feat.
In the case of the Swedish defender’s first goal, Kuznetsov took the puck from the right starting circle and moved to the far post, where a completely free Gustafsson drove the projectile into the close corner and made an attack. This gave Washington a comfortable two-goal lead over Toronto (3:1).
Kuznetsov then made a neat pass into the left rim for Gustafsson, who hit the crossbar perfectly to score a hat-trick. This goal ended the game (5:2).
It is also worth noting that the Russian defender of the “capital” Dmitry Orlov fired two shots at the target and made a power-up.
Thanks to this win, Washington scored 36 points and finished ninth in the Eastern Conference – almost in the playoff zone. Toronto is in third place with 44 points.
Philadelphia Flyers – New York Rangers – 3:6
Rangers had their sixth straight win and Russian striker Artemy Panarin contributed significantly to the result.
First, Khlebushek (the Russian nickname) scored the most important goal and evened the score after his team had already eaten in the seventh minute of the match.
Canadian forward Barkley Goodrow made a brilliant pass from the left wing to the far post and Panarin, deftly avoiding the defenders, closed the contact (1:1).
Second, the Russian participated in Rangers’ third goal, which gave his team a comfortable advantage (3:1). Panarin beat right flank Mika Zibanejad and shot to penny, where Goodrow went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and shrewdly passed the puck past him.
This move of the Russian forward was recorded as a minor assist.
So Panarin has already had 30 assists in the NHL this season – currently only four players have hit that mark.
In assists, Nikita Kucherov (35) is leading, Connor McDavid (34) is second and Leon Draisaitl (33) is third.
He also helped Panarin set an unusual NHL record for most assists by a left winger in the eight seasons since their NHL debut.
This is Khlebushushka’s 412th assist, which means Luc Robitaille surpasses his success ahead of schedule. Canada provided 411 assists in 640 games, while Panarin only needed 540 assists.
With this win, New York Rangers climbed to seventh place in the Eastern Conference with 39 points, while Philadelphia remained in 15th place out of 16 with 27 points.