NHL sniper helps Capitals punctuate night with big win over Flames
NHL sniper helps Capitals punctuate night with big win over Flames
Dustin Wolf shouldn't feel too badly. The Calgary Flames prospect goaltender is the 174th different NHL netminder Washington Capitals superstar sniper Alex Ovechkin has scored on.
Ovechkin did it twice on Monday night, showing the world he’s still got it and the Flames franchise the kind of gamebreaker it’s still seeking as the Caps hammered Calgary 5-2 at the Saddledome.
The 38-year-old connected on back-to-back power-play opportunities for his 20th and 21st goals of the season. Ovechkin now has 19 consecutive 20-goal seasons, the second-most in NHL history. He is the only player ever to start that streak from his rookie year, and he has never had fewer than 20 goals in a season.
He might be slowing down his pace, but the Great Eight is sitting at 843 NHL goals — 52 shy of passing The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, for the most in league history.
For now, the Calgary Flames can only dream of that kind of generational talent. Armed with many early-round selections in upcoming drafts thanks to the need to trade away a handful of expiring veteran contracts in the past year, they’ll perhaps get their shot.
Losing more games down the stretch would help that cause, but the Flames are as unpredictable as teams get — often beating elite teams one night and looking like a cellar dweller the next.
Against the Caps, it was the latter. Too many mistakes. Not enough of their own offensive energy.
“They’ve got some skilled forwards over there and obviously a guy that’s chasing history and buried a couple,” Wolf told reporters following the game. “Again, it’s another learning lesson for myself and the group.”
Some things can’t be taught. Elite skill like that which Ovechkin possesses is relatively rare and even more rare to find anywhere outside of the top couple of picks in any draft year. The Flames need to be nearly perfect on a nightly basis to earn their wins. There’s nothing wrong with that but it can be an exhausting way to exist at times and it’s likely going to start feeling like a long season fairly soon as fatigue sets in or their sight on the playoff race drifts further away.
Plenty of learning opportunities to come, and they’ll need the young players to use all of those lessons to their advantage.
"Five-on-five, I thought we did some things that we liked,” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska. “I don’t think we did a good enough job special team-wise. For me, that was a difference in the game — both our powerplay not generating anything for us, but also giving them momentum.
“And our penalty-kill gave up two.”
At least Ovechkin didn’t get the hat-trick.
