Alex Ovechkin’s favorite athlete of all-time is Michael Jordan. He wags his tongue Like Mike on the ice and even wears a custom Air Jordan hoodie pregame. But he is not the player the Washington Capitals have nicknamed Jordan.
Dylan Strome earned that moniker (perhaps sarcastically) for, in basketball parlance, always wanting the ball during crunch time. Strome, who spent four seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks before arriving in DC, also played his home games in Jordan’s old home arena with the Bulls, the United Center.
The revelation eked out after the Capitals posted the team’s postgame locker room celebration after defeating the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 in overtime.
Strome was the overtime hero, scoring on a tip-in 1:55 into the session.
“That overtime, Lappy escapes pressure there with his feet out of Raymond,” Spencer Carbery says to the group. “And then that play on the three-on-two… John Carlson, Stromer. Great f—-ing job.”
A player, perhaps Carlson, can be heard yelling “JORDANNNNNNNNNNNN.”
The camera then pans to the rearguard, who shrugs.
Strome’s OTGWG came two games after he dispatched the Carolina Hurricanes 7-6 with the game-winning shootout goal in the fifth round. Before that night, Strome was previously 0-for-4 in shootout attempts this season.
“I didn’t call him Jordan,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said Tuesday, correcting the record, “but I referenced Stromer in shootouts. I’ve come to learn, he wants to shoot every single time. And so, if he hasn’t shot yet…”
Carbery then did his best imitation of Strome sitting on the bench and looking back at him.
“Him and I make eye contact every single time.”
While Strome is a center — and was previously better known as a set-up man — he’s become one of the Capitals biggest goal-scoring threats since coming to Washington in 2022. After scoring 23 goals last season, he has a career-high of 25 this season and led the team in tallies for most of the year before Alex Ovechkin reclaimed his throne in the second half. With his third period goal and his OT marker against Detroit, Strome also notched his second-straight 60-point season.
“He wants to shoot,” Carbery said of Strome. “He hasn’t had the most success as a (shootout) shooter. I keep throwing him out there and so he’s moved his way back a little bit in the shooting line, but that’s Stromer. Even if he’s missed three or four in a row, he’s looking back like, ‘I’m the guy. I’m going to score here and I’m going to win this game for the team.’
“As a coach I love that, because you want people that want the ball, want the moment when it’s tough, when the game’s on the line when they can deliver. You want people who aren’t shying away from that. Dylan Strome is a prime example.”
The overtime winner was Strome’s third on the season — he also scored sudden-death tallies against the Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders. Only one other player on the Caps has scored in OT this season: Alex Ovechkin. Seventeen of Strome’s 25 goals this season have come in the third period of later.
