Athletistic / Hockey. Last night the Washington Capitals beat the Chicago Blackhawks on the road. The Capitals did it less than 24 hours after an unexpectedly resounding victory over the New York Rangers (4:0) and secured a place in the Cup eight, knocking Tampa out of the top eight. The Caps managed to confidently defeat the Black Hawks, winning with a score of 4:2.
Particularly interesting was the play of Washington captain Alexander Ovechkin. The 38-year-old Russian still attracts a lot of attention and is one of the main faces in the entire NHL. Generally, the articles about him are positive, and his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s “eternal” record for NHL regular-season goals has already become the talk of the town. However, this time everything happens the other way around: before the match against Chicago, Ovi could not score in the last nine matches. The Great Eight last celebrated their goal on November 19, when they helped the Capitals defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets (4:3).
With this in mind, the match was also interesting due to the fact that in the 2022/2023 season, Ovechkin scored a hat-trick in an away match against Chicago. These three goals helped him cross the 800-goal mark in regular NHL championships. It was at Illinois State that Ovi became the third person in history to overcome this mark. Then, the Russian had a superb run and scored 20 goals after 31 matches. But this time, Alexander has only scored five goals in 24 matches. Ovechkin was suddenly hit by the worst period of his career.
Photo source: NHL
Despite his best efforts, last night he failed to score and extended his sad streak to 10 matches. It is interesting that until today this happened to him only once – in February-March 2017, Ovechkin also failed to score in 10 consecutive matches. Nevertheless, “Washington” confidently dealt with the “black hawks” without the goals of their leader. True, the case could not have happened entirely without Ovechkin – Alexander became the author of the assist at the time of Dylan Stoum’s goal.
Unexpectedly, but with Ovechkin’s problems evident, “Washington” is playing with a lot of confidence and is a competitive team, continuing to be in the top 5 of the Eastern Conference in terms of points lost. Even before the season started, pundits wrote off the Capitals and didn’t believe they would be able to compete to make the playoffs. However, Spencer Carbery’s accusations have shamed critics. An interesting fact is that at the moment Washington leads the entire NHL in voluntary victories (nine meetings), as well as victories in matches where the opponent threatened its goal more often (10 meetings). Even “Chicago” managed to beat Washington today – 34-27.
Photo source: NHL
However, Washington’s success is part of the cause of Ovechkin’s performance issues. The team, aware of its weaknesses, began to play low, relying on defensive actions. With the arrival of Spencer Carbery as coach, Washington ceased to be a stellar team, but in today’s day and age, it would be a mistake to demand that of a coach. The “capital” team is not getting any younger: during the current regular season, Niklas Bäckström announced the suspension of his career, and Evgeny Kuznetsov still cannot find his game again. In each interview, the coach expresses his admiration for Ovechkin and says he will try to contribute to the Russian’s future record. However, for any normal coach, the interests of the team must be greater than those of a single person.
For example, after the game against Chicago, Carbery commented on his team captain’s streak of failures:
— Does Ovechkin’s age bother him? I don’t care about that sort of thing. All I’m thinking about right now is finding ways to help Alexander become a more effective player for our team so we can win games and also put him in a position where he can benefit everyone.“, the coach said in an interview with the Washington Post after the match against Chicago.
For the moment, the Caps coach has not managed to offer the Russian the conditions to which he is accustomed. Is it good or bad? We will receive the answer in April, when all Stanley Cup participants are determined.
Ovechkin has not lost his scoring instinct: he is very unlucky, in almost every match he tests the strength of bars, brushes and traps of goalkeepers, but in sports you cannot go far without luck, and we can’t escape time. Moreover, it is no longer age that is catching up with the legendary Russian, but the need for Washington to rebuild itself. There’s a good chance that Alexander will score his 30 goals in a season again, but Gretzky’s pursuit of the record is heating up to the limit again.
Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic
Source: Sport
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
