Alex Ovechkin made NHL history and he’s not done yet
Over one week ago. It was when we witnessed history from Alex Ovechkin. Washington Capitals fans rejoiced. NHL fans tipped their hats in respect. Ovechkin passed Gordie Howe.
Now only Wayne Gretzky is in the Great Eight’s sights.
On Thursday night he continued the chase with the Caps first goal of the night for career goal 803 and his 23rd of the season.
Let’s go back to the 802nd goal. The Caps had the puck going down the ice and the Winnipeg Jets pulled their goalie. To everyone’s gasps Ovechkin passes the puck to Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov fires it back to Ovechkin and he backhand flips it in for an empty net goal that brought the house down.
“It’s the kind of situation where if you have a chance to take it, you take it. I give it to Kuzy, and he’s like, ‘I don’t want to take it.’ But after that, it’s special.”
Kuznetsov added:
“I’ll feel probably bad if I score over there and half of the world probably will be so mad at me. You know, I do have a lot of haters … the reputation, whatever.”
On Saturday afternoon in the final game of 2022, Ovechkin capped off a historic year with another hat trick to his resume. Again, he’s not done yet and won’t be done anytime soon.
2022 saw Ovechkin climb up the ladder to third place and now second place.
It was Ovechkin’s 30th career hat trick. He has scored 37 goals in 53 career games against the Canadiens. When asked if he likes to play that particular team, Ovechkin replied, “No, I just enjoy to play hockey.”
Ovechkin ended the year scoring six times in four games for 26 this season. He’s on pace to score 50 goals this season and if he reaches the mark it’ll be the 10th time in career history which would pass Gretzky.
But in addition to the individual achievements there’s been more impressive team achievements with Ovi leading the charge. The Caps have won 11 of their last 13 games to go back into playoff position and should be getting Tom Wilson, Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie back from their respective injuries soon.
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But while we wait for them we’ll watch with anticipation to see what the Great Eight will do next. He’s a man on a mission and he knows what to do over the next couple seasons.