Caps Come Home After Ovechkin Heroics
Carrying a five-game winning streak, Caps return home to host Stars on Thursday, two nights after Ovechkin's 800th goal in Chicago
On Tuesday night in Chicago, Alex Ovechkin's 29th career hat trick lifted him to the 800-goal plateau, making him just the third player in NHL history to achieve that milestone. Now, the Caps' captain needs just one more goal to tie the legendary Gordie Howe (801) for second place on the NHL's all-time goal ledger.
Ovechkin gets his first crack at catching Howe on Thursday night when the Caps open up a three-game homestand against the Dallas Stars. It's the Caps' first homestand of three or more games in over a month; Ovechkin's offensive outburst came on the final night of a stretch in which Washington played eight of nine games on the road. While that stretch seemed daunting when the Caps set out on the road to start that stretch some three weeks ago, the Caps got themselves right on the road and they're hoping to build on the five-game winning streak - their longest since a seven-game streak in March of 2021 - they brought home with them after a 7-3 win in Chicago on Tuesday.
Ovechkin notched his first goal at the 24-second mark of the first period to give Washington an early 1-0 lead and he scored on the power play late in the first to double the Caps' advantage.
"I thought everybody was on point to start the game," says caps coach Peter Laviolette. "Certainly [Ovechkin's line] were on their first shift; they scored a goal. And they got another one later, shortly after that, and we're up 2-0 on the road at the end of a road trip. So it was a good start, and then it just pushed on from there."
When Ovechkin filled the hat trick and reached the 800-goal plateau at 6:34 of the third period, Washington had a comfortable 5-2 lead.
"You know what? It was awesome," says Laviolette. "It was just awesome to be on the bench and be a part of it, and to be a part of history. You work with somebody every day and they reach such an incredible milestone, it's an unbelievable accomplishment. The bench was crazy, went out onto the ice and it was really good.
"That's just one of those moments that you're not around and you're not that close to it. In sports, when something big happens like that, to be a part of it, everybody inside the room, the coaches and trainers and the fans watching back home, it's such an unbelievable experience. I'm really happy for him. I think everybody's proud of him, everybody's happy for him and it's well deserved."
Ovechkin's hat trick was his first in more than a year and first on the road since Jan. 18, 2020 against the Islanders in the final game prior to the All-Star break. He has now scored a hat trick in 15 different seasons; only Wayne Gretzky (16) has done so in more seasons.
With his hat trick in Chicago, Ovechkin reached the 20-goal mark for the season for the 18th consecutive season. He joins Howe (22) and Brendan Shanahan (19) as the only three players with as many as 18 consecutive seasons with 20 or more goals. Ovechkin is the sixth player in League history with as many as 18 seasons with 20 or more goals overall.
The Caps are 8-2-1 in their last 11 games as they prepare to take on the Stars, and they've climbed to within a win of reaching actual .500. More importantly, their five-game winning spree has elevated them to within a point of the final wild card berth in the Eastern Conference standings.
Charlie Lindgren has been in net for all five of those Washington victories, the second consecutive season in which he has authored a five-game winning streak in December. He is now 7-3-2 on the season in 13 appearances (11 starts) with a 2.81 and a .909 save pct. During the life of his December winning streak, Lindgren is 5-0-0 with a 1.81 GAA and a .938 save pct.
The Caps and Stars met in late October in Dallas, with the Stars blanking the Caps 2-0 on a 27-save shutout by Jake Oettinger. Stars forward Jason Robertson scored the game's first goal early in the first period of that contest, starting off what would be an 18-game scoring streak (21 goals, 13 assists) that ended just over a week ago.
Although the Stars have yet to string together more than three wins in a row this season, they've been pulling points consistently and are sitting in the top spot in the Central Division standings, largely because they also have yet to go more than two games with picking up points.
Dallas hits the District on Thursday for the middle match of a five-game road trip; the Stars split the first two games, losing a 2-1 squeaker in Pittsburgh before downing the Devils 4-1 in New Jersey on Tuesday night.
Dating back to March 8, 2010, the Stars are 9-1-0 on their last 10 visits to Washington (the Caps are 1-6-3). The Caps have been outscored by a combined 38-23 in their last 10 home games against the Stars, though each of the last four have been decided by a single goal. Washington's lone win over the Stars in the District during that span was a 4-3 triumph here on March 20, 2018, less than three months before the Capitals hoisted the Stanley Cup in Vegas in June of that year.
It's been more than three decades since Washington defeated Stars by more than a goal at home, and the team was based in Minnesota and known as the North Stars when it happened, on Dec. 7, 1991 at USAir Arena in Landover, Md.
