POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 6, Wings 2

Legendary Legends -Washington's two generational superstar talents both came to the fore on Tuesday night, doing what they've done best for the last decade plus here in the District. Alex Ovechkin recorded the 21st hat trick of his NHL career and Nicklas Backstrom notched the 12th four-assist game of his career to propel the Caps past the Red Wings on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena, 6-2.

Ovechkin's three-goal night extended his scoring streak to a dozen games (13 goals, six assists), matching the longest streak in the league this season and just a game shy of his personal best spree of 13 games (Jan. 1-Feb. 1, 2007). He leads the NHL with 25 goals in 30 games. The last time Ovechkin started this swiftly was in 2013-14 when he netted 26 goals in his first 29 games of the season. (We will come back to this in just a bit.)
Backstrom now has six goals and 18 points in his last dozen games. While Ovechkin's 21 hat tricks puts him in a tie for 12th place all-time with Rick Martin and Glenn Anderson, there are still 11 players over the course of the game's history who've recorded more hat tricks.
Backstrom has played almost 200 fewer games than Ovechkin, but he is now tied with Gilbert Perreault for eighth place all-time with those dozen four-helper games (This, according to Caps PR alum and crack ESPN researcher Matt Williams). Backstrom is tied with Mario Lemieux for the most four-assist games in the last 25 years.

Richard and Lach. Howe and Delvecchio. Hull and Mikita. Gretzky and Messier. Jagr and Lemieux. Forsberg and Sakic. Datsyuk and Zetterberg. Backstrom and Ovechkin.
We've been witnessing the wizardry of a remarkable pair of talented teammates for more than 11 years now, and it will always be important to pause and appreciate that good fortune while we are still able to do so.
Five Years And A Day - Remember when we said we'd come back to Ovechkin's last hot start? This is where we turn back the clock, not to the previous paragraph, but to Dec. 10, 2013. That was early in Washington's last non-playoff season, and it was the only previous time that Ovechkin had a hat trick in the same game in which Backstrom had one of his four-assist nights. Here are some recollections from that wild game.
Blackjack - Ovechkin's 21st career hat trick was his first in more than a year, since he notched one against the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Nov. 25, 2017. It's the seventh of the 21 hat tricks to come without the aid of a power-play goal, and it's the 13th of the 21 hat tricks to include the game-winner as one of the three goals.

The game-winning goal was the 104th of Ovechkin's NHL career, eighth most all-time. He trails Toronto's Patrick Marleau (105) by one for the lead among active players in that department.
Connolly Keeps On Keeping On -For the second straight game, Caps winger Brett Connolly scored the game's first goal, doing so before the first television timeout in both cases. Connolly now has a five-game scoring streak (two goals, four assists) that is a game shy of his career best. With 17 even-strength points on the season, Connolly is tied for third on the team, trailing only Ovechkin (28) and Backstrom (23).
Power Surge -Washington went 2-for-2 on the power play to record its first game with more than one power-play goal since Oct. 22 against the Canucks in Vancouver.
Carry Fourth - What most folks refer to as the Caps' fourth line continued to perform, play and produce like a higher unit, spending most of their shifts in the offensive zone and creating scoring chances regularly throughout the night.
The trio supplied the Caps' second goal when Dmitrij Jaskin outraced Green on the forecheck and made a play to Nic Dowd, who then perfectly fed Travis Boyd for Boyd's second goal in as many games.

"The intensity, the speed," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, queried as to what he likes about that unit right now. "The goal is tremendous. You have Jaskin winning the race for a puck and then they make a quick bump behind the net, and then right to the dangerous area. And they're feeling it.
"You talk about doing different things with your lineup [with Oshie returning], and our staff talked about keeping that line together. We couldn't [break them up] after the way they've been playing. They've been a line that has created momentum for our team, whether it's goals or not goals. They're playing in the offensive zone, which is ideal for what you're looking for from your fourth line."
Twelve In A Row, Commercial Free -When T.J. Oshie scored on the power play to make it a 5-0 game in the second period, it was Washington's 12th straight unanswered goal over a span that began late in the second period of last Thursday's game in Arizona on a Matt Niskanen goal that knotted that game at 2-2.
Dylan Larkin's goal early in the third ended that stretch in which the Caps outscored their opponents 12-0 over a stretch of just over 125 minutes of hockey.
Back in the Saddle Again - Oshie returned to the lineup after an 11-game absence because of an upper body injury. He scored his 10th goal of the season from the diamond spot on the power play, and didn't look sluggish or rusty at all.
Oshie has endured and returned from a number of concussions over the course of his NHL career, including one that kept him out of six games at this time last season.
"I think pace-wise and speed of the game," says Oshie, "I think I felt better this time around. I don't know if it was because I was out longer or what it was. Every concussion kind of seems a little different.
"But tonight felt good. We caught [the Red Wings] on the second night of a back-to-back, which may help a little with the speed of the game and how heavy guys are on you, but I felt pretty good out there."

By The Numbers - Carlson led the Caps with 22:25 in ice time … Ovechkin led the Caps with four shots on net, and nine shot attempts … Niskanen led the Caps with seven hits, accounting for more than half of the team's total of 12 on the night … Michal Kempny led the Caps with three blocked shots … Dowd won eight of nine face-offs (89 percent).