While SKA and CSKA sorted things out in the finals of the KHL West and stretched the first meeting of the series to the third overtime, the early game day of the NHL championship started on the other hemisphere of the Earth. The Washington Capitals-New York Rangers sign was, on the one hand, great. Alexander Ovechkin vs. Artemy Panarin, Evgeny Kuznetsov vs. Vladimir Tarasenko, Darcy Kemper vs. Igor Shesterkin… On the other hand, the meeting between the Capitals and the Blueshirts did not arouse full interest due to the absence of any tournament intrigues.
The Rangers have long guaranteed themselves a place in the playoffs and are now simply playing out the regular season, using relatively free time to test new combinations in attack. «Washington» is preparing to leave. The chances of getting into the composition of the participants in the struggle for the Stanley Cup, “Capitals” retain only mathematical and those – tiny. If anything the “capitals” care about in the last matches of the championship, it is Alexander Ovechkin's scoring statistics. The Russian continues the great pursuit of Wayne Gretzky, and also focuses on the record for the number of NHL seasons with 50 goals or more. On the eve of the game with the Rangers, Ovi had 42 goals to his credit.
Wayne Gretzky personally observed Alexander's potential new achievements.
«It will be very good for the entire league when Ovechkin breaks my record for goals in the NHL. He's going to break that record. We all know about it,» The Greatest said during NHL on TNT.
One day, Ovechkin will indeed become the best scorer in the history of the NHL championships. But today the Russian could not take a step towards the greatest history. Ovi's goalless streak reached three games in a row. Instead, the captain of “Washington” was marked by a rough and dirty game, which is not characteristic of him. A few minutes before the end of normal time, Alexander grappled with the Canadian Rangers forward Barclay Goodrow and hit him several times with a club. Subsequently, passions were red-hot, and a fight broke out on the ice. Ovechkin did not take part in it — Tom Wilson and Martin Fehervari from the Caps and Goodrow with Niko Mikkola from the Rangers were among the fans of hand-to-hand combat.
All four received 5 minutes of penalty. Ovi was sent off before the end of the match — 2+10. Severe punishment was caused both by Alexander's repeated blows with a club on an opponent, and by the behavior of the Russian in relation to the team of referees. The captain of «Washington» sarcastically applauded them, leaving the site.
The fact that Ovechkin was overwhelmed with emotion is not surprising. In one match with the “Rangers” fit literally the entire current season of “Washington”. Ovechkin, although he scored a productive action (assisted to Dylan Strome), but his team suffered another defeat — the seventh in the last eight games.
The Rangers didn't seem to mind at all. The result was obtained already at the start of the second period, when the Blueshirts took the lead with a score of 3:0. Then the guests from New York played for their pleasure. Emancipation and freedom of action helped Artemy Panarin to complete an assistant hat-trick and become the second star of the meeting. Khlebushek reached and passed the mark of 60 assists in a season. This peak was submitted to the Russian for the fourth time in his career in the NHL and the third time in the Rangers jersey. In the history of the club, Panarin became only the second player who managed to knock out 60 or more assists in three seasons.
One of Artemy's passes led to a goal by Vladimir Tarasenko. Vladi got the puck in the left faceoff circle and executed a perfect wrist shot in terms of accuracy and technique. The Washington goalkeeper had no chance to cope with such a shot.
And the Rangers, having beaten Washington, stepped over the mark of 100 points scored. The Blueshirts have scored 101 points in 77 league games. As for Washington, Alexander Ovechkin's team is eight points behind the eighth-place Florida Panthers in the East. Until the end of the championship «capital» left to play five matches.