Washington beat Carolina in the NHL championship match. Alexander Ovechkin marked the start of his 22nd career season in the league by approaching the record.
Ovechkin's last season?
“It’s hard to believe,” Alexander Ovechkin sincerely said when speaking to North American journalists on the eve of the Washington Capitals’ first match of the new National Hockey League season. The 41-year-old Russian striker himself is amazed at how long he has been on fire at the professional level and in the strongest league in the world in particular. This season was the 22nd season in the NHL career for the ageless leader of the Capitals, each of which was in the Washington camp, where he has been the team captain for the 18th season in a row. There are only a very few such long-lived and extremely loyal players to one team in the entire history of the league.
It was not known whether Ovechkin's 22nd season in the NHL would take place until July 2, when, after a short dialogue within the family, Alexander Mikhailovich decided to sign a new one-year contract with the Caps with a base salary of $4.250 million and veteran bonuses of $4.750 million.
To some extent, Ovi followed the path of the legendary Jaromir Jagr. And even though the Russian himself does not want to completely repeat the example of the eminent Czech, who played professionally even at the age of 52, the approach of the two great centenarians is similar: Alexander Mikhailovich, by the same principle, preferred to use a contract for a minimum period in order to follow from season to season, focusing on the state of his body and health. Jagr spent his last seven NHL seasons signing one-year contracts and after each season deciding for himself whether he was ready to continue to maintain a high level or not.
Ovechkin is famous throughout the world not only for his performance, but also for his unique health, thanks to which he missed only a little more than 50 games due to injuries throughout his NHL career. However, now the famous Russian admits that he has to listen more carefully to his health. Including due to his less than ideal state of health, the Washington captain again missed all preseason matches.
“We’ll see,” is Ovi’s favorite answer to any question in one way or another related to his future. He adheres to the same tactics regarding conversations about whether this season will be the last in the Russian’s NHL career.
Washington has changed
The previous season, which ended in failure for the Capitals and missing the playoffs, showed the need to make personnel changes. Before signing a contract with Ovechkin, the club worked hard on the transfer market and acquired several new players at once. They include forwards Boone Jenner, Jordan Kairu and Alex Tuck, as well as defenseman Vincent Desharnais. In addition, the Washington headquarters has high hopes for Ilya Protas, Cole Hutson and Timothy Liljegren.
The fact that in the preseason, three of the four attacking trios and two of the capital’s three defensive pairs had at least one player who was not in the team’s ranks exactly a year ago shows how much the Caps roster has been updated. Against this background, it is noteworthy that even the only remaining intact trio of Ovechkin - Strome - Leonard was also not used by Washington in the preseason matches due to the absence of the Russian goalscorer in the playing lineup.
The champion is defeated
For the first time in the history of the NHL regular season, when each club in the league played a minimum of 80 matches during the championship, Washington began the new season with an away series of back-to-back games. Today, Spencer Carbery's team played in Raleigh against the local Carolina Hurricanes, and tomorrow they will take the battle in the south of the United States visiting the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Hurricanes nominally had a slight advantage over the Capitals. Unlike the capital's team, Rod Brindamore's team had already played their first official match of the new season the day before. The Hurricanes played to overtime on their home court in the battle with the Florida Panthers and kept absolute zeros on the scoreboard until the last minute, until Panthers defender Gustav Forsling sent the teams to the locker rooms with a powerful click from the blue line five seconds before the end of overtime. It was expected that Carolina would have a more obvious playing tone and teamwork, but in reality, everything turned out sad for the current Stanley Cup champions.
Despite the fact that in the first minutes the teams exchanged dangerous attacks on the goal and brilliant saves by the goalkeepers, already in the very opening of the match Washington opened the scoring - not without the help of the Hurricanes players. Alexander Ovechkin was already preparing to go on shift and threw the puck into the zone when the home team's goalkeeper Brandon Bussey made an unsuccessful play near the front board and literally gave the puck to Pierre-Luc Dubois. The Caps forward immediately passed the ball to the nickel, from where Alex Tuck hit the goal and scored his first goal for the club.
Ovechkin was productive in the first game of the new season and, having scored the 759th assist of his career in the NHL championships, came close to Washington's record for the number of assists (Niklas Backstrom, 762 assists). The Russian also scored his 26th career point (13+13) in his team’s opening matches in the NHL regular season. In this indicator, Ovi surpassed such legends as Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito and Adam Oates, as well as Michel Goulet and Al MacInnis (all with 25 points), and approached the group of leaders, where only Jaromir Jagr (39), Ray Bourque (30), as well as Anze Kopitar, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Sakic (all with 27 points) are ahead of the Washington captain.
Subsequently, it became clear that Bassi, who had a great previous season, simply did not make it into today's match. Before the first break, he managed to concede two more goals, and in both situations the American did not play his best. At first, Bussey didn’t react in any way to Cole Hutson’s scoring wrist shot, although he fully saw the moment, and a little later, after a throw from Tom Wilson, he unsuccessfully hit the puck in front of him, giving it to Alex Tuck and giving him the opportunity to celebrate his double. At the beginning of the second period, Bassi again missed an unnecessary goal, not having time to react to Jacob Chickran's long-range shot.
Shortly before the break, Carolina tried to get back into the game and closed the gap with a power play. Andrei Svechnikov picked up the puck in time after his own powerful shot, which was blocked by Wilson, and passed it to Sebastian Aho, who hit Logan Thompson with a cool flick into the near corner.
However, after some eight seconds, Washington again created a +4 difference in its favor: having barely played the puck in the middle zone after a throw-in, Dylan Strome dragged the puck along the left edge and crossed to the nickel, from where Ryan Leonard accurately fired at the goal. Alexander Ovechkin, just in case, also rolled on a nickel and showed his readiness to accept the pass, but the puck and, in fact, the goal went to his line partner, who before the start of the season agreed with Washington on a new 8-year contract with a cap hit of $10.5 million.
In the final period, the Capitals openly relaxed and gave their opponents hope for a comeback. Carbery's men continued to retire out of the blue, and in the middle of the third period, the fatigue accumulated while playing in the minority took its toll. The visitors failed to clear the puck out of the zone, resulting in Carolina launching their second scoring attack: K'Andre Miller made a shot from the blue line, and Logan Stankoven, in turn, confused the Caps goalie with his active play in front of the goal. As a result, the puck flew into the net.
