One of the fringe benefits of having taken more than 5,000 shots is that sometimes even the bad ones go in.
In the first period of Tuesday’s Caps-Wings game, Alex Ovechkin, well, he duffed it. This shot was garbage. It was way wide. It had no chance of going.
But Niklas Kronwall was feeling charitable, so here we are, talking about Ovi’s 23rd goal of the season.
Goal 1
Ovi was north of the faceoff dots, in a region we call the Ovi Spot (all rights reserved, probably). From there he released a slapshot that probably would have had a live bounce off the boards, but we’ll never know. The puck careened off Kronwall and into the net.
He was very amused.
Goal 2
Ovechkin added another tally in the second period, opting not to pass and scoring on a two-on-one break with TJ Oshie.
The Russian machine now leads the league with 24 goals, three more than second place Brayden Point and Patrik Laine. The two goals also gave Ovechkin 631 in his career, nine goals away from Dave Andreychuk who sits in 14th place all-time.
Ovechkin has a 12-game point streak, with 11 goals in that stretch. Not bad. Not bad at all. The streak is the second-longest in the NHL this season, behind only Mike Hoffman’s 17-game run earlier this season with Florida.
Now go get the hatty.
An Alex Ovechkin hat trick on @russianmachine's Ovechtrick birthday would be #nice
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) December 12, 2018
Update: HE DID IT!
