Alex Ovechkin made NHL history in the Washington Capitals’ 1-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. And Ovi did it in the only way he knows how: when the lights are brightest.
Ovechkin beat Senators goaltender Leevi Merilainen 3:07 in overtime for career goal number 874. With the tally, Ovechkin broke Jaromir Jagr’s record for the most goalies scored on in NHL history as Merilainen was the 179th different netminder Ovechkin has found paydirt on. The goal was also Ovechkin’s 27th career overtime game-winner, the most of all time.
So to summarize: Ovi broke an NHL record by extending a different one. We’re living in historic times.
Ovechkin scored after the Capitals lost a faceoff in the offensive zone and things looked dire. With the game tied 0-0, the Senators’ Jake Sanderson raced past Ovechkin, going down to the Capitals end on an odd-man rush. As Sanderson looked to make a play, Capitals defenseman Rasmus Sandin stole the puck, springing the Capitals on a two-on-one.
Sandin then dished to Ovi and with a rolling puck, The Great 8 rifled a shot past Merilainen top shelf.
A small slice of fans at Canadian Tire Centre could be heard chanting “Ovi!” as the Capitals’ captain celebrated with his teammates.
“Yeah, I think it’s just such a good group of guys,” Ovechkin said of the victory. “It doesn’t matter if we’re up and down, we just stick together and try to play smart, play well, and collecting points.”
The victory marked Logan Thompson’s second consecutive shutout.
During his 20-year run in the NHL, Ovechkin has scored on five different Hockey Hall of Fame goaltenders who won five Stanley Cups — Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, and Ed Belfour. Ovi’s also dented the twine against 15 of his former Capitals teammates including Lundqvist, Cristobal Huet, Craig Anderson, Tomas Vokoun, Olaf Kolzig, Jaroslav Halak, Brent Johnson, Jose Theodore, Justin Peters, Semyon Varlamov, Darcy Kuemper, Philipp Grubauer, Logan Thompson, Pheonix Copley, and Ilya Samsonov. Ovi’s netted goals against a father and son goaltending pair — though the dad was beat when Ovi played in the Russian Super League. The goaltender Ovechkin’s terrorized the most is future first ballot Hall of Famer, Marc-Andre Fleury. Ovechkin, in likely his final game against MAF, beat the former first overall pick for the 28th time in a Capitals’ 4-3 shootout loss. Ovechkin has also scored on 11 of the same goaltenders Gretzky scored against.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery flashed a big grin and seemed in disbelief upon learning of Ovechkin’s new record.
“We’re going to be able to — just the accolades and the different parts of this record are going to just be about a 10 page essay on this,” Carbery said. “So most goalies, yeah, I mean it’s not surprising, he’s got empty netters, you just continue to check boxes on what his remarkable career and scoring on different guys and in different buildings and against every team — it’s remarkable what he’s doing.”
Ovechkin is now 20 goals away from Gretzky for a share of the NHL goals record of 894 and 21 to own the record by himself.
With his 21st goal in 29 games, Ovechkin is on pace to score 48 goals this season and break Gretzky’s record near close to season’s end. At his current 0.724 goals-per-game average, Ovechkin would tie Gretkzy at 894 on March 30 vs Buffalo and score no. 895 on April 1 at Boston.
