Athletistic/Hockey. On the night of April 5, an NHL game took place. The Washington Capitals hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins. The capital club lost 1:4.

Ryan Shea, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Michael Bunting and Lars Eller scored for the winners. Russian striker Evgeniy Malkin finished the match with a utility coefficient of “+1”.

Russian forward Alexander Ovechkin scored Washington’s only goal.

Washington suffered its fourth consecutive defeat. “Pittsburgh”, in turn, extended its winning streak to three matches.

One of the capital’s main competitors, the New York Islanders, was able to take advantage of Washington’s defeat by beating the Columbus Blue Jackets in their match (4:2). The Islanders scored 83 points and passed Washington (82) in the Metropolitan Division standings, pushing the Capitals out of the playoff zone. Alexander Ovechkin’s team now sits in fifth place in its division.

Washington has seven games remaining before the end of the regular season.

After the meeting with Pittsburgh, Ovechkin reduced the gap between the best snipers in the NHL and Canadian Wayne Gretzky to 45 goals. Thus, the Russian has 849 goals in his NHL career. In turn, Gretzky scored 894 goals during his career.

It’s worth noting that Ovechkin also tied the NHL record for most goals in April. Alexander scored his 67th career goal in April and tied the NHL record held by former Finnish forward Teem Selanne. Note that Ovechkin needed 105 matches for this, while Selanne had 116. In third place is Jaromir Jagr with 49 goals this month.

This season, Ovechkin participated in 72 regular season matches, in which he scored 27 goals and 33 assists with an average utility coefficient of -20.

After the loss to Pittsburgh, Ovechkin stressed that Washington continues to fight to reach the NHL playoffs.

“We’re trying to make one more pass. We’re holding the puck a little longer, trying to find a nice play. It’s not working, especially at this point in the season where everyone is just focused on winning, everything The world plays a little faster. You have to make decisions faster.

Yes, we still have a chance to reach the playoffs. We are still in the game. We just have to keep fighting,” the league press service quotes Ovechkin.

In their next game, Washington will face the Carolina Hurricanes.

Recall that in the race for the best scorers of the 2023/24 NHL season, Russian forward “Tampa Bay” Nikita Kucherov is in the lead. Previously, the striker scored a goal and made an assist in the match against Montreal (4:1). In total, Kucherov has 133 (43+90) points in 75 games.

Colorado forward Nathan MacKinnon scored 3 (1+2) points in the NHL regular season game against Minnesota (5:2). The Canadian is second in the ranking of top scorers in the league, with 130 (48+82) points in 76 games.

Third place in the scoring race is occupied by Edmonton forward Connor McDavid, who has 126 (29+97) points in 72 games. Rangers’ Artemi Panarin is fourth; the Russian has 110 (45+65) points in 72 matches.

Andrey Andreev, Sport.Ru



Athletistic