Secondary scoring is sweet, but sometimes rank has it
privileges, and the Captain of the Washington Capitals exercised his on
Thursday night. Alex Ovechkin recorded a hat trick to lead the Capitals to
their fifth straight win, a 4-3 decision over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy
Center, while the Wild fell to their seventh straight defeat.
After the teams played to a scoreless first period, Ovechkin
opened the scoring early in the middle frame. Ovechkin started the play by
carrying the puck into the Minnesota zone on the left side. From just inside
the blue line he sent the puck across to Nicklas Backstrom at the far edge of
the right wing faceoff circle. Backstrom slid the puck back to T.J. Oshie just
jumping off the bench. Oshie fired a shot at the Wild net that hit a player on
way through and was directed onto the stick of Ovechkin to the right of goalie
Devan Dubnyk. Ovechkin snapped the puck past Dubnyk’s right pad, and it was 1-0
2:14 into the period.
Less than three minutes Ovechkin had his second goal. On a
power play, Backstrom directed play from the right side. He moved the puck out
to John Carlson, who fired a shot that went wide, caroming hard off the end
boards. The rebound off the end wall came back out to Dubnyk’s right where
Ovechkin was waiting once more. Before Dubnyk could secure the near post,
Ovechkin jabbed the puck past him to make it 2-0 at the 5:21 mark.
The Wild halved the lead when Charlie Coyle put back the
rebound of a Mikko Koivu shot from the top of the crease, but the two-goal lead
was restored barely three minutes later. Nicklas Backstrom settled a loose puck
and circled through the right wing circle. His shot was stopped by Dubnyk, but
he could not hold it in his glove. The puck snuck out through a clot of players
in front of him, and it found Ovechkin one more time. Ovechkin snapped a shot
that hit the post to Dubnyk’s left rebounded back and off his left leg, and then dribbled over the goal line to complete the hat trick for Ovechkin 14:55 into
the period.
Minnesota struck first in the third period on a power play
goal by Ryan Suter to get the Wild to within a goal. They could not get the
equalizer, though. Jason Chimera scored an empty net goal with 51.1 seconds
left to make it 4-2, and Mikael Granlund added a late goal for the Wild for the
final 4-3 margin.
Other stuff…
-- The hat trick propelled Ovechkin into the league lead in
goals with 34, one ahead of Chicago’s Patrick Kane.
-- The hat trick was Ovechkin’s first of the season and
first since December 10, 2013 when he recorded four goals in a 6-5 win over the
Tampa Bay Lightning. It broke a 180-game streak without one. It was his 14th
career hat trick, breaking a tie with Eric Staal for the most since the
2005-2006 season. He is now tied for second among active players in career hat
tricks with Marian Gaborik and one behind Jaromir Jagr for the lead among
active players.
-- The win was the Caps’ fifth straight, making it five
streaks of five wins or more this season.
-- Ovechkin’s power play goal made it consecutive games with
power play goals for the Caps, the first the scored against a goaltender since
they went 2-for-2 against the Columbus Blue Jackets on January 19th. They had
an empty net power play goal on Tuesday against the Nashville Predators, also
scored by Ovechkin.
-- Nicklas Backstrom had a three-assist game, tying him with
Evgeny Kuznetsov for the team lead and drawing him to within one of the league
lead in three-assist games this season (Erik Karlsson has four). It was
Backstrom’s 30th career game with three or more assists, most in the NHL since
he came into the league in 2007-2008, breaking a tie he had with Sidney Crosby.
-- Kuznetsov took a stick to the face off a faceoff in the
third period and did not return to the game.
-- The Caps took it on the chin in the 5-on-5 battle,
allowing 48 Minnesota shot attempts to 38 of their own (44.2 percent Corsi-for),
a product of being out-attempted, 20-8, in the third period. They did have a slight edge in scoring
chances, though, credited with 16 to 15 for the Wild (numbers from
war-on-ice.com), who made a contest of it in that third period with five
scoring chances to one for the Caps.
-- Ovechkin’s three goals, his 507th (Rochester, MN, area
code), 508th (Cape Cod), and 509th (Spokane), vaulted him into 39th place on
the all-time goal scoring list, passing the legendary Jean Beliveau. He now is within another hat trick of Gilbert
Perreault (512) in 38th place.
-- Michael Latta had another one of those very clean score
sheets. The only mark on this one (he
had none on his score sheet against Nashville on Tuesday) was credit for one
hit. Then again, John Carlson’s was
mighty clean, too, in almost 24 minutes of ice time. He did have an assist on Ovechkin’s power
play goal, but the only other mark on it was a missed shot attempt.
-- If you follow faceoffs, you have to know that winning 22
of 68 draws is either really generous hometown scoring, or the Caps were
butt-ugly awful in the circle. Mike
Richards…3-for-13 (23.1 percent). T.J.
Oshie…0-for-8 (0.0). Evgeny Kuznetsov…3-for-14
(21.4). It was a team effort.
In the end…
Winning streaks are funny.
You can see them coming when a team is on a losing streak, but they
start playing better in advance of seeing their good efforts rewarded on the
scoreboard. Conversely, you can see the
end of them coming when they are winning games while losing in their underlying
numbers. Such might be the case with the
Caps here. Mediocre possession numbers (even
accounting for the third period edge for the Wild), poor results in the little
things like faceoffs. Let’s face it,
this game turned on headwear…a hat trick.
Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom (three assists, and he won 12 of 21
draws) had very good games. The rest of
the team, not as much. They will have to
do better when they head to Dallas for a game Saturday night against the Stars.
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