Courtesy: Washington Capitals Facebook Page
While it would have been nice for Alexander Ovechkin’s monumental 400th career NHL goal to take place in front of the home crowd at Verizon Center, the captain of the Washington Capitals just couldn’t wait as he netted an empty-net goal late in the third period as his team defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2.
Despite the Capitals allowing 30 or more shots for the 30th time this season in 35 games — the Hurricanes had 41 shots on-goal — Washington was able to play opportunistic hockey and propelled themselves to victory relying on their best weapon in the power play.
The Capitals went 3-for-5 on the man advantage as Marcus Johansson, John Carlson and Troy Brouwer all added second period power play tallies as they finally defeated a Hurricanes team who had their number in their previous two matchups. There’s something to be said about just how good this power play really is in D.C. and despite facing the 23rd-ranked penalty kill of Carolina, they knew they would take any win over their division foe no matter how they had to light up the lamp.
Ovechkin will steal the headlines because of his monumental goal, but something has to be said about center Nicklas Backstrom and the way he orchestrates this offense, especially when the Capitals are a man up. The patience and tape-to-tape passing abilities of Backstrom allow for great finishers like Ovechkin to bury goals and the Swede was in exceptional form last night with another four-assist performance. Believe it or not, Backstrom actually leads the Capitals in points with eight goals and 33 assists for a total of 41 points — Ovechkin has 40 with 29 goals and 11 assists. No. 19 also is now in sole possession of the overall NHL assists lead as he surpassed Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby who has 32 on the season. And imagine if Backstrom shot it more because he has a great shot, but it’s not in the nature of his game. Just watch whenever he takes a shootout attempt and make your assessment on whether or not he would be a 30-goal scorer year in and year out if he was on a team that didn’t feature the best finisher in the NHL in Ovechkin.
Getting back to the Capitals’ captain though, he is nothing short of amazing and No. 400 took some work to get despite it being an empty-netter. When your 100th goal had to come against the likes of New York Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist, you’ll take anything you can get. With that goal, the 28-year-old is the seventh-youngest player to reach the milestone and the sixth-fastest in terms of games (634). Only Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull and Jarri Kurri hit the 400-goal mark in less games; Ovechkin finds himself in pretty good company. This has been a year to remember for Ovechkin as he moved into second place on Washington’s all-time goals list when he scored Dec. 15 against the Philadelphia Flyers passing Mike Gartner (398 goals). Ovechkin reached that mark in 630 games — Gartner needed 758 to reach that mark. In a Dec. 10 matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Russian tallied two power play goals to move atop Washington’s all-time power play goals list (138) passing former Capitals great Peter Bondra (137).
If you want to see how he’s done it this season, here’s a graphic courtesy of Roman Jedlicka:
Courtesy: Roman Jedlicka – TV NOVA Sport
It’s no secret that Ovechkin likes to shoot from the left-side circle and carry the puck over in that direction coming from his traditional right wing spot. The captain virtually trademarked the curl-and-drag up the left-side boards during the early stages of his career, but defenders started picking up on it so he had to adapt changes to his playing style. Clearly, it’s worked as he still finds his sweet spot with regularity and team’s find it almost impossible to scout a player of his caliber.
In addition to Ovechkin’s performance last night, Philipp Grubauer was once again superb between the pipes for the Capitals. 39 saves earned him the first star of the game and rightfully so as even Ovechkin declared him the best player on the ice in Raleigh. The 22-year-old is now 4-0-1 on the season with a 2.05 goals against average and a .940 save percentage. Capitals fans have to wonder if he is making a legitimate argument to stay up with the big boys in D.C. as he has shown he’s more than capable of playing at the NHL level in Michal Neuvirth’s absence. Grubauer’s lateral movement and cat-like reflexes rival that of former Capitals and now Colorado Avanlanche goalie Seymon Varlamov. Given the goalie he has become out west, the Capitals might want to look extra hard at this netminder’s prowess going forward, although it is still early in his young NHL career.
The Capitals will be back on the ice tonight as they face the New Jersey Devils at 7 p.m. at Verizon Center. New Jersey dropped a 3-2 overtime thriller against the Anaheim Ducks last night as the Bruce Boudreau-led Western Conference opponent will make their way to D.C. Monday evening for a pre-Christmas soiree with the Capitals.
Notes: The Washington Capitals are 19-13-3 on the season and garnered just their ninth regulation win Friday night vs. the Hurricanes. Washington has eight wins by way of a shootout and two wins have come during the overtime period.
