Capitals: Top 3 amazing milestones of 2020
The Washington Capitals achieved several milestones this year.
We’ve broken down all the Washington Capitals milestones of the season and leading the charge in several different categories are Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson.
Ovechkin played like a man on a mission on his way to 700 career goals. He led the league with 48, tied with Boston Bruins David Pastrnak, to share the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy. Ovechkin led the NHL in goals for the third season in a row and an NHL record ninth time overall.
John Carlson led all defensemen with 60 assists and 75 points. He is in the conversation for the Norris Trophy and is a heavy favorite to win the award.
What’s crazy between Pastrnak and Ovechkin is that they are different in age with the former 23 while Ovechkin is 34. Yet age is just a number as they both led the league in goals. Ovechkin not only reached 700 goals but passed five Hall of Famers en route to another season of 40 or more goals.
Carlson meanwhile finished 10 points ahead of Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators for the most among defensemen and is 20 points ahead of Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Here are our top 3 milestones from the season.
#3 John Carlson’s record for most points by a defensemen
Recently John Carlson passed Calle Johansson for the most assists by a defensemen in Capitals franchise history. Like we mentioned in the previous slide, he’s a big time favorite for the Norris Trophy.
This season, Carlson’s 60 assists led all NHL defensemen and ranked fourth among all players in the NHL. He became one of five defensemen to reach the 70 point mark in 59 or fewer games in the last 30 years.
Carlson is the 10th defensemen since 1979-80 to record 60 assists within his first 67 games. Over the last 20 seasons, only three other defensemen have recorded at least 60 assist in a season. Carlson was on pace for 71 assists prior to the season getting suspended. That would’ve been the highest total by a defensemen since 1993-94.
Back on Feb. 23 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Carlson recorded two points to become the team’s all-time point leader among defensemen, passing Calle Johansson with his 475th career point. His big one came in the third period on an assist on a goal from Carl Hagelin.
Per the Capitals, it took Carlson 233 fewer games than Johansson to reach that mark (983 games for Johansson and 750 for Carlson). Carlson has recorded 478 points (105 goals, 373 assists).
#2 Another 40 goal season from the great eight
Alex Ovechkin took home another Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy, splitting the award with David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins as both led the league with 48 goals. Since the creation of the trophy in 1998-99, no other player has won the award more than twice. It’s the seventh time Ovechkin has received the trophy in the last eight seasons.
Ovechkin has shown no signs of aging at all despite being 34. He’s the third player in NHL history to lead the league in goals at that age or older. He is also just the fourth player in NHL history to score 48 or more goals in a season at at the age of 34 or older.
35 of Ovechkin’s 48 goals came at even strength, which was the fourth highest total of his career. There was just 13 games left in the regular season so we never will know how many goals Ovechkin would’ve finished with if there was a full 82 games. Ovechkin was on pace for 57 goals, which would have been the second highest total of his career.
Ovechkin also was on the cusp of joining Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy as the only players in NHL history with nine 50 goal seasons but now we have to wait until next season to see if Ovi can still work his magic.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t bring it in the 24 team playoffs.
#1 700vi
There was no doubt an Alex Ovechkin milestone was going to be at the top of this list and of course we were going to go with the big 700th goal. Back on Feb. 22 against the New Jersey Devils, the great eight became the eighth and second fastest NHL player to reach the mark of 700 career goals.
Ovechkin reached that milestone in his 1,144th career game trailing Wayne Gretzky who took 886 games to reach that mark. Ovechkin has 706 career goals before the pause in the season. He’s just three goals shy of passing Mike Gartner (708) for the seventh most goals in NHL history.
Ovechkin passed some elite company on his road to 700 goals including Luc Robitaille (668), Teemu Selanne (684), Mario Lemieux (690), Steve Yzerman (692) and Mark Messier (694) on the NHL’s all-time scoring list.
Ovechkin’s best stretch that catapulted him to the cusp of 700 goals came from Jan. 13 through Feb. 4 when he scored 14 goals over seven games, which included three hat tricks. Ironically his last hat trick was his first natural hat trick with three goals in the final seven minutes of regulation against the Los Angles Kings, a complete takeover.
Here’s hoping Ovechkin gets a shot at 800 later in his career which would get him one step closer to Wayne Gretzky.