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Capitals vs. Senators Recap: Ovechkin Finds 500 and More in 7 to 1 Victory

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After Alex Ovechkin‘s OT game winning goal on Saturday night he was positioned to tally career goal number 500 on home ice against the Ottawa Senators and he did not disappoint. Behind the captain’s milestone marker the Capitals pulled off a comfortable 7 to 1 win over their Eastern Conference rivals.

First up, here’s Sunday night’s Plus/Minus:

Twelve more notes on the game.

  • Philipp Grubauer got his first start of 2016, having not gotten the nod since New Year’s Eve in Carolina. He picked up his first PIMs of the season in the first period and kept everything tidy through sixty minutes, finishing with 31 saves.
  • Washington drew first blood with Justin Williams firing a quick snap shot through Andrew Hammond‘s left arm and body. A slick pass from Andre Burakovsky, through his own legs, put the puck in William’s wheelhouse and he willed it into the net.
  • Less than three minutes later T.J. Oshie extended the lead to two with a power play goal from Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom. With Bobby Ryan in the penalty box for interference Oshie made no mistake on his one-timer from ten feet out
  • The Senators would score early in the second to get within one thanks to a sharp short side shot from Mike Hoffman that beat Grubauer on his right side.
  • However Zach Sill would respond for Washington, once again less than three minutes later, by slamming home his own alley-oop pass over the crease. It is his first goal since January 21st, 2015 when he was a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
  • Sill, in his fifth game of the year after serving a two game suspension, put his mark on the game in 12 minutes of ice, a season high. With Jay Beagle injured, Marcus Johansson serving his own suspension, and Mike Richards still getting up to speed Sill shined in his role tonight.
  • And then, 104 seconds later, Dmitry Orlov took a Nate Schmidt pass on the blueline and walked down to he circle before rifling a slap shot into the upper right hand corner of the net. Orlov got all 212 lbs. into his shot and Ovechkin provided traffic in front.
  • Ovechkin then stole the show with his 500th career goal from his office, atop the right face off circle during a power play on Verizon Center ice. His quick snap shot off his back foot beat Hammond upstairs and sent the Verizon Center into hysterics.
  • Really great in game timeout to give Alex and his teammates a chance to share in the milestone. Ovechkin’s brief trot around the neutral zone, with his hands clapping above his head, is the kind of stuff that lives on film, and in our memories, forever. Congrats Alex!
  • 500 goals in 801 games. Two games faster than the great Phil Esposito (and four decades later) and the fifth fastest of all time. Ovechkin is just the eighteenth player in history to tally 500 goals in less than one thousand games played. First Russian. Holy smokes.
  • Then Tom Wilson tucked home his third of the year with a blind backhand from beneath the goal line. The puck deflected in off of Hammond’s stick blade and caught everyone by surprise, Wilson included.
  • The icing on the cake was Ovechkin’s second goal of the night, a powerful backhanded move around Erik Karlsson at the blue line that the sniper ended up stashing upstairs. There was no stopping Ovechkin tonight.

A 10 game winning streak on home ice. A 500 career goal scorer as our captain (who burned the reigning Norris Trophy winner in the third). Atop the NHL with 67 points. Today was a great day.

Game highlights:

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