Photo credit: Mike Stobe
Coming into Wednesday, we didn’t know if Alex Ovechkin was going to be able to play, as he was dealing with an upper-body ailment after leaving practice on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, Ovi was ready after the morning skate. “Feel good,” Ovi said. “Just one part of my body didn’t feel great.”
Against the Isles, Ovi feel good indeed. While the team continued falling off the even-strength scoring cliff, Ovechkin kept the Caps in a game that looked like it was heading towards disaster early on.
Midway through the first, Ovechkin gave the Caps life after New York had been pummeling Braden Holtby. Matt Niskanen set up of Ovi in the far circle after the Islanders left him wide open because apparently they don’t have GameCenter Live and have never watched a Caps game. The captain let the puck fly like a softball in a batting cage. Tie game.
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With the Caps down once again in the tail end of the second, the Caps cycled the puck down low a man up. When Nicklas Backstrom got the puck behind the goal line, he slipped the puck through the crease to Ovi, once again wide open. Tied again.
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“It was pretty sick,” Ovi said of Backstrom’s pass. “He knows where I am and if he have a chance to pass it he will. I tell him right away it was a great pass. He the guy who can make those kind of plays.”
The Caps haven’t scored five-on-five in the last two games. That’s a problem. They were able to get a point tonight thanks to Ovechkin’s snipes. According to Mr. Vingan, Ovi has scored multiple power play goals 15 times, ahead of everyone else in the league. Now, if Washington could only pair that with goals during the other 54 minutes of the game…
