Although the Washington Capitals fell 3-2 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets, Alex Ovechkin captivated hockey fans everywhere by scoring his 889th career goal to put him six away from overtaking Wayne Gretzky from the throne as the NHL's new goal scoring leader.
How it happened
In the sequence, Trevor van Riemsdyk broke his stick but despite this found Aliaksei Protas who then found Ovechkin with a cross ice pass as Ovi was lurking in his office at the left face off circle. It was a snap shot at the 16 minute mark for his 36th goal of the season.
The goal continued success for Ovechkin against the Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers franchise as he's recorded 102 points in 75 career games against them with 57 goals and 45 assists. Those are the most goals and points by any player against the franchise. His 57 goals are the most by an active player against one franchise.
Ovechkin's goal came with four minutes remaining in the contest to tie the game. Ovechkin has scored 19 of his 36 goals this season in the third period. He also has scored 10 goals in his last 10 games against Winnipeg.
Some more fun facts for you. It was Alex Ovechkin's 150th game ying goal which is already the most in NHL history and 11 more than Wayne Gretzky, who has the second most. It was also his 16th game tying goal in the final five minutes of regulation which tied Brendan Shanahan (16) for the fourth most in NHL history. The only others with more are Teemu Selanne (19), Wayne Gretzky (18) and Dave Andreychuk (17).
Ovechkin owns a goals per game rate of 0.65 this season, which puts him on pace to pass Wayne Gretzky and complete The Gr8 Chase against the New York Islanders at UBS ARena on April 15 at 8 p.m. eastern on ESPN. His career average of 0.60 also has him on track to break the record that night.
But there's still six more goals to go between now and the record breaker. So the journey continues on Thursday night when the Capitals head to Minnesota to take on the Wild. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. across a plethora of networks: Monumental Sports Network, ESPN+, Hulu, and Disney+.