WASHINGTON – Alex Ovechkin has ended his brief drought. The countdown to another milestone in his career has begun again. Ovechkin scored his first goal of the season on Friday night, leaving him two goals shy of 900 in his career and helping the Washington Capitals to a 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild. Ovechkin was scoreless in the first four games of the season, a longer stretch than any point last season, when he scored 44 goals and broke Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record with goal number 895. Now, the count has reached 898 goals, visible on a scoreboard over a corner of the rink in Washington.
With the Capitals up 2-1 in the third period, Dylan Strome won a face-off against Ovechkin, who shot the puck wide of the left post.The opportunities were there. Sometimes you just have to be patient.
Alex Ovechkin
The Capitals lost their first game but have won four in a row since then, and have only allowed three goals in 5-on-5 situations all season. On Friday, they outshot Minnesota 45-14 in a dominant performance. The shot ratio was 24-7 after two periods, but Washington was only leading 2-1 before Ovechkin gave the Capitals their first multiple-goal lead of the night.Obviously, we try that play quite often, and when it works, it looks great. It doesn’t always work. It was something that just fell into his comfort zone.
Dylan Strome
Everything we did in the third period was exactly in line with how we want to play. The structure, the players made good decisions, rotating the lines. It was probably our most impressive period given the situation.
Spencer Carbery
