Ovechkin series

After the break for the All-Star Game, Alexander Ovechkin has finally emerged from hibernation and is once again rewriting the records of the National Hockey League. The Washington forward scored against Colorado, which is third in the Western Conference standings, and extended his goal streak to six matches.

This is already the fifth such achievement in Ovechkin’s overseas career. Moreover, the latter happened quite a long time ago, in December 2018. In addition, Alexander became the third player in NHL history after Brett Hull and Johnny Busiek, who, at the age of 38 or older, managed to distinguish himself as often.

At the same time, Ovechkin is close to repeating his personal record. After all, the longest goal streak of a hockey player is seven meetings, which he played in his debut season, 2005/06. Then he scored eight goals and gave five assists.

Another shot from the “office” brought Alexander a little closer to Wayne Gretzky’s record. Now the forward's gap has been reduced to 58 goals. For the Russian, this was the 836th goal of his NHL career, while the legendary Canadian has 894.

True, it cannot be said that Ovechkin showed himself brightly in the battle with Colorado. The Russian spent a little more than 20 minutes on the ice. During this time, he made only three shots on target at Alexander Georgiev’s goal, and the forward’s utility indicator was “-2”.

For a long time, the game took place without any noticeable participation of the Capitals captain. In the first period, Colorado quickly took a 2-0 lead, but Washington quickly bounced back through the efforts of Bec Malensteen and Connor McMichael.

In the second 20 minutes, the Avalanche again scored two goals, but this time Ovechkin’s team failed to quickly restore balance in the match. Hope for salvation dawned only in the third period after Alexander’s successful actions in the majority. John Carlson moved the puck to the throw-in circle to his left, from where the Russian hammered it into his compatriot’s goal - 3:4.

As Washington head coach Spencer Carbery noted, this goal was very important for the team from a psychological point of view.

“Another match where he scored on the power play. This is an important goal that brought us back into the game. A positive moment for the team, which gave us a chance to continue the fight,” the official NHL website quotes the coach as saying.

However, the captain’s actions could not change the course of the meeting. Washington still lost with a score of 3:6 after Colorado hit the empty net twice in the end. For the Capitals, this is already the eighth defeat in the last nine matches, and the team’s chances of reaching the playoffs are becoming less and less. 

Rubezh Kucherov

Nikita Kucherov has already accustomed fans to the fact that he does not leave the ice without effective actions. The confrontation with Boston was no exception, in which the Tampa forward scored a goal and was the first in the league to score his 90th point in the current regular season.

The forward reached this mark for the fourth time in his career. Moreover, the striker became only the sixth hockey player in the league over the past 30 years who needed 55 matches or less to do this (Kucherov did it in 53 games). The Russian stood on a par with Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. At the same time, he continues to argue with the latter for first place in the list of top scorers of the season.

The Canadian shares third place with David Pastrnak (both have 77 points), and ahead of him is Nathan MacKinnon (87). However, in the last match with Detroit, the Oilers captain made six assists for the first time in his career. Previously, his best result was four assists.

So Kucherov cannot slow down in any way. As for the match with Boston, the game for Tampa, as expected, turned out to be difficult. The Bruins managed to save themselves from a 0:2 deficit and brought the matter to a shootout, in which the Lightning were luckier. Nikita's team finally managed to beat the leader of the East away: the previous four matches were unsuccessful, and in January a major defeat of 3:7 was recorded.

At the same time, not only Kucherov, but also his compatriot Andrei Vasilevsky showed himself clearly. For the Tampa goalkeeper, this confrontation turned out to be very important from a psychological point of view. In the previous meeting, he allowed half a dozen goals on 25 shots. This time, the goalie made 36 saves over three periods and overtime, earning well-deserved praise from head coach John Cooper.

“The guys fought hard, but it was hard in the third period. We received three minor fines, and we simply could not do anything, but we must give credit to those who played in the minority, they did a great job for us, and Big Cat (Vasilevsky -

RT

) showed himself again: he saved our skin a couple of times , especially in extra time,” the specialist noted.

Another Russian goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin also played a good match. The Islanders lost to Seattle 1-2 in a shootout, but the goaltender stopped 29 shots, finishing with a 96.7% save percentage.

St. Louis forward Alexey Toropchenko and Columbus forward Dmitry Voronkov scored a goal each, but their teams had unsuccessful matches, losing to Toronto (1:4) and Ottawa (3:6), respectively.