Former Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov often talked about wanting to be in the photo with Ovechkin whenever he’d approach a significant milestone, and managed to get in a few of them, including when Ovechkin scored his 802nd goal to move past Gordie Howe for second on the NHL list on Dec. 23, 2022.
Before Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom was Ovechkin’s primary center and assisted on 279 of his goals during their 17 seasons at teammates. But a nagging hip injury forced Backstrom to stop playing eight games into last season. And after being plagued by inconsistency, Kuznetsov was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes last season before leaving the NHL to play for SKA St. Petersburg in the Kontinental Hockey League this season.
It appeared Pierre-Luc Dubois might take over as Ovechkin’s center after the Capitals acquired him in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings on June 19. But Dubois has been skating on Washington’s potent second line with Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson instead while Strome has emerged as the heir to Backstrom and Kuznetsov as Ovechkin’s setup man.
“‘Backy’ is one center. ‘Kuzy’ is different. ‘Stromer’ is different,” Ovechkin said. “So, you can’t compare all of them. I think ‘Stromer’ is still young. He still can become a much better player. He’s still growing up, so he has great potential to be a top center in the League.”
That’s the role Strome was expected to play when the Arizona Coyotes selected him with the No. 3 pick in the 2015 NHL Draft behind Connor McDavid, who was selected No. 1 by the Edmonton Oilers, and Jack Eichel, who was taken No. 2 by the Buffalo Sabres. During the 2014-15 season, Strome led Erie of the Ontario Hockey League with 84 assists and 129 points in 68 games, ahead of his teammate McDavid, who had 76 assists and 120 points in 47 games.
But it took Strome some time to find his game in the NHL, and he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2018. Although Strome improved with the Blackhawks, totaling 154 points (60 goals, 94 assists) in 225 regular-season games during his four seasons with them, they decided to rebuild following the 2021-22 season and he became an unrestricted free agent when they didn’t make him a qualifying offer.
Trying to retool on the fly by putting younger talent around Ovechkin and their older core, the Capitals signed Strome to a one-year, $3.5 million contract on July 14, 2022, followed by a five-year, $25 million contract ($5 million average annual value) on Feb. 3, 2023.
Given the opportunity to play consistently on one of the top two lines for the first time in his NHL career, Strome began living up to his draft position. He had an NHL career-high 65 points (23 goals, 42 assists) in 81 games in 2022-23 and surpassed that total last season with 67 points (27 goals, 40 assists) in 82 games. He’s on an early pace to finish this season with 128 points, including 105 assists.
“He’s an incredibly smart player and skilled,” said Edmonton Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, who coached Strome for four seasons with Erie. “There are some players that I’ve coached that I certainly appreciate and sometimes people watch them and look at their warts. … But Dylan Strome is a really good player.
“He’s smart and if you’re playing with a goal-scorer, if you’re a goal-scorer you want somebody that is smart and can get you the puck. Dylan can absolutely do that.”
Strome has 100 assists in 177 games during his three seasons with Washington, nearly matching his total of 103 in 273 games during his previous six NHL seasons, including on 36 of Ovechkin’s 83 goals (43.4 percent) during that span, according to NHL Stats. Kuznetsov and defenseman John Carlson are tied for the second-most assists on Ovechkin’s goals over that span with 14 each.
Strome assisted on 14 of Ovechkin’s 31 goals (45.1 percent) last season, despite Ovechkin starting slowly and Strome not getting his first assist until the 15th game. Strome started piling up assists, though, when Ovechkin heated up and scored 23 goals in his final 36 games.
That’s continued into this season.
“I think Stromer is playing at a really high level,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Love his game where it is right now and [he] has absolutely taken a step from last year. … But I do think last year they were an effective line when they played together, and they controlled play and their expected goals when they were on the ice was always pretty strong relative to our entire team.
“And it’s just been nice for them to get on a little bit of a roll and pucks have gone in.”
The most assists Backstrom had on Ovechkin’s goals in a season was 33 in 2014-15, accounting for 62.3 percent of Ovechkin’s NHL-leading 53 goals. Backstrom led the NHL with 60 assists in 82 games that season.
Although Strome has assisted on all of Ovechkin’s goals so far this season -- he’s on pace to finish with 58 -- the center is not expecting that to continue. Strome joked, “I’m going to get 35 straight assists (on Ovechkin’s goals) and not on that one (No. 895).”
Strome said he’d be OK with that, though. He assisted on Ovechkin’s 801st goal to tie Howe for second (also on Dec. 23, 2022) and was in the postgame photo from that one. He’d like to be in the next photo, too, but that could be out of his hands.
“I was talking with my dad last night,” Strome said. “Gretzky scored 802, his record breaker, and I know [Marty] McSorley got the assist, but I couldn’t tell you who got the second assist (Luc Robitaille). So, looking back on it, it would be nice to have, but everyone is going to remember you were on the Caps, you played with Ovechkin, you got assists on a lot of his goals when he was chasing the record.
“It’s one goal, one of 895. So, of course, it would be cool, but at the end of the day, it’s something that you can’t prepare for, you can’t overthink because the likelihood is somewhere around 40 percent.”
NHL.com staff writer Derek Van Diest contributed to this report
