“I should listen more to Kuzya!” How Ovechkin scored a double and repeated Gretzky’s record

Washington built a stronghold in its zone

Playing outside for two days is always difficult. Especially in such circumstances where “Washington” Important defenders were injured. Martin Fehervari, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Joel Edmundson are injured. The nuance is that the first two defensive players had the main task of blocking shots, which is a very important element in hockey. Especially since Washington (379), one of the worst shooting teams in the league, ranks sixth from bottom in the NHL.

The Capitals’ situation is difficult and they now have to send unused hockey players to the game. Swede Hardy Haman Aktell (five career championship games), Canadian Lukas Johansen (six NHL games) and Russian Alexander Alekseev (40 league games) showed up for the game with the Islanders on defense.

But with such a young defense, Washington not only allowed a single goal against the New York Islanders, but also made 32 blocks during the game – when the players caught the puck on themselves, preventing it to achieve the goal.

You have to understand that this is the second best result of the season in the NHL. Only San Jose (35) made more blocks per game against Edmonton, but there Connor McDavid’s team simply shot at the hapless Sharks from all positions, trying to score a goal.

Washington played an exceptional game from a defensive standpoint against the Islanders. The young Capitals defense jumped out of their hockey shorts to try to build a barrier in their zone.

You will always find yourself in an empty portal!

38 years old Alexander Ovechkin did not score for six matches in a row, and many Internet channels (especially Russian) rushed to hang all sorts of nonsense on him: they say that the Washington captain is in terrible condition and is even overweight.

In fact, it all makes no sense. As I wrote yesterday in a column on , the Capitals’ main problem was that young coach Spencer Carbury had not put Ovechkin and Kuznetsov on the same line and that the team’s entire offense capital sank suddenly. Additionally, Alexander the Great had a miserable shot conversion rate of 4.2%, which can only be explained by bad luck.

As a result, Carbury stopped reinventing the wheel, leaving the Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Tom Wilson trio in its original state. And already in the 10th minute this connection worked when Kuzya won a throw-in, throwing the puck to Alexander the Great, and he immediately shot a clean shot that Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov could not handle.

Toward the end of the period, host defender Alexander Romanov, the grandson of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, who raised Ovechkin from cradle to cradle for Dynamo, scored his first goal of the season. There, Washington goalkeeper Hunter Shepard made the only mistake of the match, got confused behind the goal and lost the puck – here Romanov was not confused and hit the empty frame.

But in the second half, Washington made many more blocks and also scored twice when Nik Dowd and Belarusian Alexei Protas scored. The Capitals’ fourth goal, three seconds from the end of the game, was the logical conclusion of the evening.

And this goal made history! After receiving the pass, Ovechkin missed the empty net from the blue line. Thus, Alexander the Great scored the 56th empty-net goal in his career and repeated Wayne Gretzky’s record. No one in NHL history has scored more goals in such a situation. Followed by Marian Hossa (40 years old), Brad Marchand, Eric Staal, Mario Lemieux (33 each), Jérôme Iginla (32 years old), Zach Parise (30 years old)…

Ovechkin usually says of his empty-net goals: “A goal is a goal. And it doesn’t matter how it was rated. It’s always nice to score goals. But in the dynamics of the game, you still have to hit the empty net.

Ovechkin: “Each of us sacrificed”

And let’s not forget that Alexander the Great scored the 826th goal of his career. Gretzky’s highest goalscoring record (894) is 68 away goals.

Let’s also take into account that the Washington captain (1,496) is only four steps away from the grandiose figure of 1,500 career points in regular NHL championships.

It’s also interesting that Ovi scored the eighth goal against his former teammate Semyon Varlamov – yes, we remember how Varley played for the Capitals. And Sasha’s first goal dates back to January 12, 2015.

After the match, Ovechkin spoke with American journalists.

— You saw that all our guys on the ice gave everything for each other, sacrificed, blocked pucks, played intelligently and simply. And it all yielded results,” Ovi said.

— Was it difficult to play two away matches in two days? Were you tired?

— I would say that no one left the game. Even if the charge was serious. We played against a good team. But we knew what we had to do. Like I said, each of us played simply and intelligently. Shep (Capitals goaltender Hunter Shepard) was incredible today and made some crucial saves. The other guys tried really hard, made blocks, tried to get the puck out of our zone and into the neutral zone. We all worked for the team.

— How did it affect the fact that Washington opened the scoring and you scored in the 10th minute? In addition, the moment was interesting: Evgeny Kuznetsov won the throw-in, you immediately shot and scored the goal.

“Kuzya and I spoke just before this confrontation. Kuzya told me what to do – and it worked. I should listen to Kuzya more. Well, Tom Wilson played well there, blocking their goalie’s view.

—How important is this victory to you? You have a lot of young people in your team, especially in defense.

“As I said before, this is a great opportunity for us to see what we are worth and what we can do for the future. If someone drops out, someone gets injured, we see these guys who can step in as a replacement, play with confidence and for the good of the team.