The Washington Capitals are experiencing difficult times. Throughout the season, the Capitals have suffered due to personnel difficulties caused by health problems among the club's leaders, which naturally affects the results. And they are not satisfactory for the Caps either. Spencer Carbery's team has dubious prospects of making it to the playoffs in the regular season, and in terms of performance they are among the worst clubs of the NHL season. This is largely due to poor execution of chances, which has plagued Washington’s leader and main sniper of the 21st century, Alexander Ovechkin, throughout the championship.
However, recently Ovechkin has begun to resemble that same goalscorer whose successes are followed by the entire sports world. The Russian forward yesterday set his best result of the season in terms of the number of matches in a row with goals scored, scoring in three games in a row. But Ovi didn’t stop there and for the first time since March last year, he went on a four-game scoring streak.
Today the Capitals visited the Boston Bruins, one of the best teams in the NHL and the leaders of the season. In the East, the Bears have no equal, and in the championship standings only the Vancouver Canucks are higher than them, ahead of the Bruins by only one point. Boston is famous for its powerful attack and energy-intensive hockey, which few can cope with. It seemed that Washington, against the backdrop of a protracted crisis, would appear as whipping boys in Boston, but everything turned out to be completely different.
The Capitals literally humiliated the Bears, not allowing them to create anything. During the first ten minutes, the Bruins didn’t even throw a single shot at the visitors’ goal, and in the first two periods, in total, they only really bothered the capital’s goalkeeper eight times, while Ovechkin’s team made over 20 shots during the same period, one of which turned out to be accurate. In the third period, “Washington” academically brought the matter to a “close” victory, skillfully withstood the game in the minority, and at the same time sent the puck into the opponent’s net twice more. Ovechkin did his best.
First, Alexander assisted Dylan Strome, extending his personal scoring streak to five matches, and at the end of the meeting he scored himself.
Moreover, Ovi had recently served in the penalty box, receiving a somewhat controversial suspension for two minutes, but his teammates supported him , and the Russian himself, having served his penalty, returned to the court and a few moments later accurately shot at the empty goal.
Thanks to this goal, Ovechkin again rewrote the history of the NHL and set another record — of course, previously held by Wayne Gretzky. The great Canadian hit the empty net 56 times in the NHL championships during his career. Ovechkin did this for the 57th time. But the main record is still ahead. Today's goal was the 834th in his career for the Russian sniper. There are exactly 60 goals before Wayne Gretzky's result is repeated.
And it seems that talk about the crisis of the Washington leader is no longer so relevant, right? In the last 14 matches, Ovechkin scored 15 points (6+9). Very good numbers for a 38-year-old forward. As Alexander himself once said: “The Russian machine does not break down.” It looks like this same car really started.