An achievement for the ages: Ovechkin was the first in NHL history to score 850 goals for one team

A throw into history

For Washington, every point at the end of the NHL regular season is worth its weight in gold. The team has not lost hope of making it to the playoffs, but four defeats in a row before the away meeting with Carolina did not add optimism to the fans. As well as the fact that Alexander Ovechkin scored only one goal during this period.

However, the captain of the Capitals himself noted after the loss to Pittsburgh that nothing had been lost yet and we just needed to keep fighting. It was with this mindset that he entered the game against the Hurricanes and took matters into his own hands from the very first minutes. Less than a quarter of the period had passed before the guests' No. 8 opened the scoring. He successfully positioned himself on the spot in front of Peter Kochetkov's goal and, picking up the puck after the rebound, confidently beat his compatriot.

For Alexander, the goal was his 850th in the NHL, and this is not just a beautiful round number, but also another record by a living hockey legend. Apart from Ovechkin, no player in the history of the league has scored so many goals for one team. Even the great Wayne Gretzky. The Washington veteran's path to this achievement began on October 5, 2005, when he scored his first NHL goal against Columbus. It is unlikely that anyone will encroach on this record of the Russian forward in the coming years. Among active players who spent their entire careers in one club, only 36-year-old Pittsburgh forward Sidney Crosby (589) and 34-year-old Steven Stamkos from Tampa (549) scored more than 500 goals.

The capital's leader did not stop at this achievement in the match with Carolina and at the end of the period doubled the guests' advantage. Ovechkin's second goal turned out to be similar to the first - he again worked on the spot, but this time he did not have to beat the goalkeeper. Alexander put his stick under John Carlson's shot from the blue line and the puck ended up in the net again. Thus, the Russian scored his sixth double of the season and reduced the gap behind Gretzky to 43 goals. Since January 27, he scored for the 21st time, which put him in second place in NHL history in the number of goals among players over 38 years of age in any period of 30 games in one regular season. In total, Alexander has 29 abandoned goals. Only one thing separates him from another significant milestone, which has not yet been achieved by any player in the league - 18 seasons with at least 30 goals.

Alas, the efforts of the Capitals veteran did not bring the team victory. After the break, Carolina seized the initiative and managed to get one goal back through the efforts of Jake Guentzel, and in the third period they evened the score. It is noteworthy that the scoring pass in this episode was scored by former capital player Evgeny Kuznetsov, who moved to Raleigh in early March. During this time, the Russian played 15 matches for the Hurricanes and scored 7 (2+5) points.

And the winning puck flew into Darcy Kuemper's goal 111 seconds before the final siren. The Canadian goalkeeper stopped 41 shots during the match, but did not survive in the end.

Washington has six games ahead and there is no room for error if the team does not want to end the season early for the second time in a row.

Fedotov's first match at the start

Ivan Fedotov entered the NHL match for the first time in the starting lineup of Philadelphia. This event was even announced the day before by the team’s press service, so special attention was focused on the Russian goalkeeper in the game with Buffalo. As Ivan himself admitted, he was a little nervous about his full-fledged debut, and, probably, this prevented him from showing his best qualities.

Fedotov looked a little lost throughout the game and stopped only 15 of 19 shots on his own goal. In the second period, he missed two very similar goals - Rasmus Dahlin and Jack Quinn left him out of action with wrist shots from the half-zone. And in the third period, the Russian, covering the near corner, allowed the same Quinn to push the puck between himself and the post. As a result, the Flyers lost with a score of 2:4. This is the team's sixth defeat in a row and the second for the Russian goalie in the NHL. On April 2, he came on as a substitute early in the second period of the game against the Islanders and made 19 saves, but did not save the team from an overtime goal.

According to the ex-CSKA player, he did not spend the meeting with the Sabers in the best way: it was difficult to maintain the rhythm of the game and maintain concentration, because the opponents did not attack his possessions that much. The team's head coach, John Tortorella, also stated the same. He emphasized that the defeat was not Fedotov’s fault, although the team “could use an extra save.”

Of course, it’s hard to expect that a goalkeeper who has literally dropped from a ship to a ball will perform miracles of salvation in a new environment. Ivan needs time to adapt and rebuild, especially since he made his debut overseas at a fairly advanced age - at 27 years old. By this indicator, by the way, Fedotov took fifth place among all Philadelphia goalkeepers. Later, Johan Backlund (28), Roman Cechmanek (29), Neil Little (30) and Robert Sepp (33) started playing for the Flyers.