Alex Ovechkin had a pedestrian night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but, like so many games before, he still managed to score.
With Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Matt Murray pulled for an extra attacker, Ovechkin, cherry-picking way ahead of the play, gathered in a pass at center ice from Aliaksei Protas and tucked the puck softly into the empty net.
The goal was Ovechkin’s 16th in 19 games this season and the 869th of his career. Ovi now trails Wayne Gretzky by 25 for a share of the NHL’s all-time goals record.
“Every game, every goal is hard to score in this league,” Ovechkin said postgame. “It’s nice to be back on the board.”
The tally marked Ovi’s 60th career empty-net goal — the most of all-time and four more than Wayne Gretzky who scored 56 during his playing career. It was also Ovi’s 25th goal in 30 career road games against the Maple Leafs.
“He was flying for that goal,” Tom Wilson said. “It was nice to see him get back on track here.”
The goal comes 40 days after Ovechkin last played due to a broken fibula. Ovi suffered the injury on November 18 against the Utah Hockey Club. The Capitals captain scored twice on that night, too, and has six goals in his last three games played.
“It’s great,” Chychrun said of Ovechkin’s return to Monumental Sports Network. “We obviously missed him a lot. He’s a guy that the boys really rally behind. He’s just great for our group. Even when he was out, he was around as often as he can be coming on the road and stuff. It’s great to see him out there with us competing and scoring goals.”
Ovechkin, who was named by his teammates the player of the game, received 14:58 of ice time in the Capitals’ 5-2 victory over the Leafs, throwing three shots on net and doling out three hits. The Capitals play again on Sunday against the Detroit Red Wings.
