Ovechkin tries again for 700th goal with Capitals struggling

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Alex Ovechkin's bid to score his 700th NHL goal has begun to mirror the Washington Capitals' quest to recapture their identity and play a complete game. As much as Ovechkin wishes he could finally score to reach the milestone, the Capitals wish they could flip a switch and improve instantaneously.

So, with Ovechkin one goal from becoming the eighth NHL player to score 700, Washington will try again to find its best game, against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Saturday (1 p.m. ET; NHLN, MSG+, NBCSWA, NHL.TV) before returning home for a first-place showdown with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday.
The Capitals (37-17-6), who are tied with the Penguins for first in the Metropolitan Division, have one win in their past six games, and Ovechkin has scored once in those games after scoring 14 goals in the previous seven.
The forward broke his season-long five-game drought with No. 699 in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday, scoring his 41st of the season off a face-off won by center Nicklas Backstrom in the first period.
"It wasn't a miraculous play," Washington coach Todd Reirden said Friday. "It wasn't some tic-tac-toe, perfect, 'Man, that's how I would have drew up No. 700 or 699.' That hopefully is a good indication that that's how it's going to happen, No. 700. I'm concerned more about our team playing playoff hockey and not just expecting that it's going to happen one day by accident. So we're going through that process now."

The Capitals let leads of 1-0 and 2-1 slip away Thursday before tying the game on an extra-attacker goal by Tom Wilson with 21 seconds remaining in the third period.
There were moments when the Capitals looked like their old selves, using their speed and physicality to get in on the forecheck and create turnovers and scoring chances. There were other moments when they turned over the puck in the defensive zone or weren't hard enough around their net, which led to quality scoring chances and goals against.
"There's times where you look like an elite team, but if you're going to be an elite team, it needs to be the whole game," forward Wilson said. "I think every hockey player around the League says, '60 minutes, 60 minutes,' but you've got to go out there and show [it] and you've got to go out there and play the 60 minutes. It's not easy, and that's why it's so tough to be on top of the League after 82 (regular-season) games, because it's a lot of hockey and you've got to stay as consistent as you can."
Though the Capitals have been talking for the past month about playing a complete game, that has proven to be a challenge. They allowed the first goal in six straight games before scoring first against the Canadiens and have led for 13:52 in the past six games.

Washington went through something similar around this time two seasons ago before finding consistency. The Capitals went 12-3-0 in their final 15 regular-season games, a roll that carried into the Stanley Cup Playoffs and ended with them winning the Stanley Cup for the first time.
"It is a process and you have to learn things," forward T.J. Oshie said. "We've got a lot of guys here that were on the Cup team and we had to work for that too, and this time around maybe we can switch it on, but I'd rather not wait to find out. I'd rather turn it up right now.
"We don't need guys putting their faces in front of pucks, but there's a certain way we have to play the game and that has to come to everyone naturally without thinking about it, and until we do that we're going to struggle and we're going to fight our identity and try to play a different way, and it's not going to work."
Ovechkin will remain in the spotlight Saturday, trying to join Wayne Gretzky (894), Gordie Howe (801), Jaromir Jagr (766), Brett Hull (741), Marcel Dionne (731), Phil Esposito (717) and Mike Gartner (708) as the latest player to score 700 goals. The Capitals are trying to keep their focus on their play as a team, though, and hope Ovechkin's milestone goal happens naturally.
"I think our intentions have been to flip the switch, and maybe that's proving as a good reminder that you just can't go into the playoffs thinking that way and expect your game to follow," Reirden said. "We're not playing winning hockey for regular-season games and certainly not for playoff hockey at this point."