This baby will never forget this night.
I could say that the Washington Capitals defeated the Minnesota Wild, but that wouldn’t be totally cromulent. A better way to put it: Alex Ovechkin defeated the Minnesota Wild. (Braden Holtby helped.)
Ovi scored, then Ovi scored, then someone else scored, then Ovi scored again. One of those was a power-play goal. Then Ryan Suter scored, and it was close all of a sudden, but it’s the Caps so they won. Chim-dawg got an empty netter and some Minny dude got a late goal, whatevs.
Caps beat Wild 4-3! Five wins in a row!
- Let’s start with the obvious: Chipotle is back and better than ever. I had a free burrito today and I’m gravitational-wavey certain that I’m not gonna get sick from it. This bullet is not sponsored by Chipotle, but if it were, that’d be cool by me. Okay, now on to hockey.
- Another obvious thing, but not as obvious as Chipotle being tasty: Alex Ovechkin is a unique, one of a kind, sui generis player. Inside twenty minutes, Ovi scored three goals to break like three records and break this game wide open. I don’t wanna do the “grateful” routine because I’ve done that before. I don’t wanna say anything cloying. I don’t wanna say anything staid either. I think I’ll just defer saying anything about it until the bottom of this recap, cool?
- Ovechkin hit double-digit shots for the third time this season. He scored on three of them; did I mention that part?
- Nick Backstrom got an assist on every one of those three goals. Dude behind the dude.
- Ovi could of had 4 goals, but he passed to Oshie, which he should not of done, because now Pat is gonna talk more smack to me, and he’s clearly winning the bet already.
- I hereby donate this gross trash can to the officials so they can live in it. Because they’re garbage. The Capitals got roughhoused by the Wild and got very little in the way of restorative justice. Andre Burakovsky, Tom Wilson, and Evgeny Kuznetsov were on the receiving end of some borderline stuff. Whistles on none.
- Specifcally, Kuznetsov got whacked in the face by Mikael Granlund immediately after a center-ice faceoff. Kuzy didn’t return. Stitches? Concussion? Stand by.
- Fifteen goals for Jason Chimera on the empty-net goal. Tom Wilson got the assist, so that “scoring combo” is still doing whatever the hell that is. Scoring, I suppose.
- Shout out to Emily and Charles, who were in the house tonight. Emily is seen below with a giant Joe B head. (Poor Joe B is expected to be back for Saturday’s Dallas game.)
She’s been preaching the gospel of @JoeBpXp & @Laughlin18 to all Wild fans tonight. @EmilyCello #caps pic.twitter.com/Mctzj0HaM2
— soundedfury (@soundedfury) February 12, 2016
- Al Koken bailed on “Joe Hanson,” and it feels forced to me. I miss ol’ Joe Hanson, but I do enjoy the time I’ve spent with Andre Bear-akovsky and Andre Beer-akovsky, who, by the way, ended his consecutive point streak at eight games.
Smokin’ Al Koken suit of the night
It’s been a rough week for me. Real adult life can be a real bear(akovsky) sometimes. Real life is so rife with Stuff That Supposedly Matters. Sometimes it just gets too heavy.
I think it’s nice to set aside an hour or two or two and a half just for whimsy. That’s what sports is. Sports do not matter, objectively. They’re made up. They matter only insofar as we choose to let them matter.
So, like I said: rough week. But I got to take a break. I got to watch a very special player have a very special night. And the load, at least for now, feels a little less heavy. I don’t mind it so much.
So thank you, Ovi from hockey. Thank you, sports.
Here’s the end of an email I sent late in 2009:
Good call.
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