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Ovi is the GOAT: Caps beat Canes 4-2

By Peter Hassett (@peterhassett) on March 31, 2015 | 0 Comment

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Hahahahaahahahaha. Hahahaha. Haha. *Contented sigh* Heh.

What a great game. The Capitals beat the Hurricanes in a must-win game. Alex Ovechkin scored his 50th. All the goals were pretty rush goals. That was a blast.

Mike Green scored first, on the rush, like a boss, as Curtis Glencross crashed the net. Then Alex Ovechkin hit the 50-goal mark for the sixth time with a lovely wrister from the high slot.

The Canes evened it up in the second period with goals by Nathan Gerbe (thanks to Alex Semin) and captain Eric Staal, but before we hit the second intermission Jason Chimera found Brooks Laich driving to the net to restore the Caps lead, which Joel Ward supersized with a late-period goal off Alex Ovechkin’s perfect pass.

Caps beat Canes 4-2.

  • I feel like I should just capture the essentials here.
    • Alex Ovechkin is tied with Peter Bondra for the franchise lead in goals with 472.
    • Alex Ovechkin has scored 50 goals or more in 6 seasons. If 2013 weren’t shortened, it would have been 7.
    • After the Joel Ward goal, Alex Ovechkin is tied for second place in franchise assists– behind Nick Backstrom.
    • Alex Ovechkin is arguably the greatest goal scorer of all time.
    • As far as I’m concerned, Alex Ovechkin hangs the stars.
  • I’m something of an Alex Ovechkin fan. Here’s a collection of tweets about Ovi’s big accomplishment.

  • And if you’re a glutton for past misery, I’ve been retweeting hot takes about Ovi from years past on my personal twitter.
  • So I’m not a huge fan of the lines– or maybe just Evgeny Kuznetsov as the primary puck-mover for the top line, but the results are compelling. Kuznetsov gained the zone and fed Ovi for that first goal, then puck-carrying Ovi fed Joel Ward for a goal of his own. Maybe that’s a little more dynamism than we get from the (very, very competent) Backstrom-anchored line.
  • If you ask me, Ovi’s pass was prettier than his goal. If you ask anyone, that was Ovi’s first assist since March 13, which either means the rest of his team had trouble scoring or he’s a lazy, selfish Russian, coach-killing, eurotrash specialty act. Pick one.
  • Jason Chimera: soft hands. His cross-ice assist pass to Brooks Laich was on the same level as Ovechkin’s to Ward.
  • Uhh… were all those goals rush goals? Rush goals are the best goals. Boudreau style, always pressing, scoar moar.
  • Did the Capitals take their foot off the gas after the first period? I dunno… (Graph via hockeystats.ca)
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  • Goodness gracious, Alex Semin still has the skills. He drove up the ice and fooled Braden Holtby to get a missed scoring chance– that ended up going to Nathan Gerbe anyway. Gorgeous play for the bad guys.
  • And when I say bad, I just mean evil, not bad bad. The Hurricanes are not actually a bad team as far as I can tell. They’re pretty good at the non-PDO stuff during 5v5, which is where almost all of the game was played.
  • Mike Green broke one of his precious Stealth sticks. I don’t think he should have told people he was hunting for them on ebay. Fans of 29 other team are driving up prices now.
  • We were in a completely clean game until Evgeny Kuznetsov got busted for slashing two minutes into the third period. The Caps kept the Canes shotless on the power play.
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Joe B suit of the night

I’m thinking about Alex Ovechkin and how we talk about him, but I’m also thinking about Sidney Crosby. And for some reason I’m also thinking about Joni Mitchell.

We don’t have to wait until he’s gone to recognize what we’ve got in Alex Ovechkin. A horde of blustery gray-faced mittenstringers had written him off at various times over the last four years, but he’s… well, Ovi is the shit.

When his numbers were down, we now know, it was the effect of his team retreating from offense, losing some good forwards, the league’s defense adjusting to him, and a decline in power plays in the NHL. But Ovi bounced back with his first good coach since the Caps fired Bruce Boudreau, and now he’s basically got a mortal lock on the Richard trophy.

Forgive me for saying this: it’s the same story for Sidney Crosby. For all the bloviating about his down season and how his team’s less-than-amazing performance is his fault, Crosby has once again run away with the scoring title.

I don’t think of the NHL as Ovi vs Sid anymore. I think of it as Ovi and Sid versus all the nonbelievers who don’t appreciate how special they are and how lucky we are to get to cheer them on– (or cheer against them, obviously.)

So here’s me saying thanks, Alex. Now go scoar moar goals.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Canes

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