There was a lot going on in last night’s win over the Blues, and plenty of moments one could point to as being a major contributor to the win. But aside from the overall offensive fireworks and the goaltending and the penalty killing and contributions from up and down the lineup and all the things, one thing stood out: the reappearance of the team’s much-maligned power play, which struck not once, but twice against St. Louis.
The first of those two goals came early in the second period, with the Caps up 3-1, and was scored by none other than the man himself, Alex Ovechkin.
The play started with Dylan Strome carrying the puck up the middle in a clean zone entry. As the Blues’ defenders close in on him, he quickly tries to find Connor McMichael sneaking in to Jordan Binnington’s left. The puck clicks off a Blues player and narrowly evades McMichael’s reach, but still ends up somewhat on net. McMichael and Wilson set up in the slot as the puck trickles out to Ovechkin, who naturally takes the shot…which Binnington saves.
He fails to control the rebound, though, which bounces right back to Wilson in front. Wilson makes a deft little pass back to Strome. That pulls the attention of everyone in blue over to #17 – including Binnington, who gets pulled way out of position as if mesmerized by Strome (which, to be fair, we totally get).
Before Binnington can get back, Strome sends the puck across to a wide-open Ovechkin, who has an even wider-open net, and…yeah, you just can’t combine those two things when you’re dealing with the greatest goal-scorer in NHL history.

Just a phenomenal play all around.
So that was the first one. The second one came courtesy of Connor McMichael, because apparently he takes it very personally when Ovechkin tries to pass him for the team’s goal-scoring lead and therefore needed to score again in this one, too. And while the first PPG was scored off your typical setup in the offensive zone, the second came off the rush.
With Ryan Suter in the box again (rough night all around for the Blues’ veteran blueliner, who got a nice view of Ovechkin’s power-play strike from the sin bin), the Caps lost the initial draw in the offensive zone – but you can’t convince me it wasn’t on purpose after what happened next.
Much like the first goal, John Carlson goes back behind his own net to retrieve the puck, carries it up ice, and finds Dylan Strome streaking up the middle. Strome again passes to McMichael (with a pretty slick no-look dish, no less) – only this time he connects. Then it’s all up to McMichael, who floats in on net, dances around Binnington, and tucks the puck into the net.

The kid is just absolutely feeling it right now, and follows Ovechkin into double-digit goal territory just 14 games into the season.
The two goals scored by the Caps with the man advantage last night not only were the catalyst for turning a relatively close game into a rout, but they also had the fun result of pulling the team out of 32nd place in the league (switching with, ironically, the Blues). Don’t look now, but the Caps have scored at least one power-play goal in three of their last six games – progress!