Did Alex Ovechkin score? Yes, his 22nd of the season and the 875th of his career. He is now 20 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record.
Plus: The Washington Capitals have been struggling to get a consistently high volume of shots on goal from game to game, but they’ve managed to keep winning so it thankfully hasn’t been too noticeable. In their 3-2 win over the Oilers on Tuesday, they had just 14 shots on goal. Tonight was a significant departure from that trend—they finished their game at Climate Pledge Arena with 33 shots on goal. That combined with an impressive defensive outing made for a pretty complete game for the Caps. To top it all off, Charlie Lindgren also had a shutout in his first game back since his injury on January 10.
Minus: Martin Fehervary just can’t catch a break, can he? He took a shot up high in the second period after a Vince Dunn slap shot got deflected right into his face, and he immediately dropped to the ice. It looked eerily similar to what happened to John Carlson in December 2022, and Fehervary quickly made his way down the tunnel with a towel held to his face. Thankfully he returned for the start of the third, but he does have a pretty gnarly bruise. Oh, and this all happened after he got a goal called back after an offside review.
Our Three Stars:
*** Ethen Frank (1G)
** Aliaksei Protas (1G)
* Charlie Lindgren (22 save shutout)
Bonus content from tonight: There was a delightful moment between Aliaksei Protas and Al Koken during the second intermission interview…