The NHL shared its best regular-season hits highlight reel in super slow-mo, so you can enjoy the bone-crunching hits with exquisite precision. Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin and top-line Tom Wilson each had more highlight-reel hits than any other player.

The video starts with a cinematically-intense soundtrack and seemingly-innocuous shots of Ryan Reaves exiting a bus, Tom Wilson adjusting his wrist pads, and Brent Burns sporting a lovely french braid. Then the music drops the beat, Jake Muzzin drops the Ducks’ Kiefer Sherwood, and the action gets underway.

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Tom Wilson was 26th in the number of hits overall in the league for the 2018-19 season with 200 in 63 games played. Here he levels the Blues’ captain Alex Pietrangelo.

Somehow Wilson was only second on the team in terms of total hits–Ovechkin had 223, albeit in a higher number of games played (81). Here he plays the role of captain and brick wall as he says hello to the Oilers’ Kris Russell.

Ovechkin led all NHL captains in the reel with four hits, ahead of Gabriel Landeskog of the Avalanche (3), Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars (1), and Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks (1), who were the only other captains included.

Here he says “‘sup?” to Blackhawks captain Jonathon Toews.

The team as a whole had 14 highlight hits, with five from Wilson, four from Ovechkin, and one apiece from Matt Niskanen, TJ Oshie, Devante Smith-Pelly, Nic Dowd, and Andre Burakovsky. The runner-up Dallas Stars had seven hits total. (Yes, I counted them all. It’s August.)

Ex-Capital Niskanen straight-up made the Red Wings’ Justin Abdelkader go sideways.

With the departure of some of these big hitters the Capitals have made some fitting additions in the offseason: Garnett Hathaway, previously with the Calgary Flames, had 200 hits in 73 games (and one highlight on this reel), and Radko Gudas, who had 255 hits in 77 games with the Flyers.

What are your faves that the NHL left out?

Headline image: NHL