The Washington Capitals got blown out on national TV on Sunday, but there was one positive.
During the third period, ESPN’s play-by-play crew of Steve Levy and Ray Ferraro discussed Alex Ovechkin’s legendary durability. Ovechkin has played in 1,291 games during his 18-year career in the NHL and only missed 47 of them.
The duo was very impressed.
Steve Levy: The remarkable thing about Alexander Ovechkin the goals… that’s obvious… and the power play goals… but the way he plays a heavy game and he shows up every single night.
Ray Ferraro: That is just astounding that’s missed only 47 games in his career. He said after they won the Cup, “Russian machine never breaks.” The fact is it’s almost impossible to play as much as he has, the minutes he has played, the number of hits he had…
Steve Levy: If you actually consider the celebration they had after winning the Stanley Cup…
Ray Ferraro: That was remarkable.
Steve Levy: That didn’t stop him.
Now, this is either new reporting — because I don’t remember Ovechkin uttering this phrase during that time — or Ferraro was remembering a press conference at Nationals Park when the Capitals celebrated their Stanley Cup championship at a Nats game.
For these three, the party has not stopped. Just listen to this exchange. 😂 #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/AJVLCkvITK
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) June 9, 2018
After Ovechkin threw two ceremonial first pitches, Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson made fun of, uh, how much the Capitals captain had been celebrating since the Caps won the Cup.
“Russian machine never breaks,” Nicklas Backstrom said.
John Carlson joked, “He’s breaking.”
Anyways, yay, the phrase RMNB on national TV.
