Photo credit: hcdinamo.by
After suffering a rare loss to Severstal on Friday, newly-named/temporary captain Alex Ovechkin vented about the officiating, inferring implying that some calls would have been made only at a kids’ game. On Sunday, with Yuri Babenko still out with injury, Ovechkin kept the C and practiced leadership of another kind. 2:45 into overtime and on the power play, Ovechkin, who played a game-high 29:09 minutes, crashed the net to knock a rebound past Pekka Rinne, giving Dynamo Moscow a 3-2 win over Dinamo Minsk (who recently severed ties with Evander Kane).
Nicklas Backstrom, two games removed from his first KHL hat trick and multi-point game, had two assists in 19:05 of ice-time.
Let’s see that game-winner.
Alex Ovechkin’s OTGWG is at the 6:36 mark. Nicklas Backstrom’s assists are at 0:10 and 1:08.
Early in the second period, former Flyer Denis Tolpeko (who replaced Richard Gynge on the first line with Sasha and Nicky) scored a powerplay goal assisted by Backstrom and Ilya Gorokhov. Three minutes later, Tolpeko put the puck past Rinne again with Backstrom again getting the helper. Minsk bounced back. With less than 40 seconds to go in the second period, former Jet Tim Stapleton cut the deficit to one. And with eleven seconds to go in the third period, Stapleton drew a penalty shot and scored, sending the game to overtime — err — Ovi-time. After former NHL player Cody Murphy picked up a penalty for taking a Dynamo Moscow player’s stick, Ovi scored on the resulting power play, giving Dynamo a thrilling victory.
Backstrom has four goals and nine points in eight games. Ovechkin has seven goals and 17 points in 17 games.
Photo credit: hcdinamo.by
Additional reporting by Fedor Fedin.
