He’s making the effort. Give Alex Ovechkin that much. He came into the season in much better shape from the start, ready to play. And while the offensive production wasn’t there early, he scored two goals on Monday night against the Philadelphia Flyers. An eruption is always under the surface with the 26-year-old Russian.
Ovechkin again saw fewer minutes than in year’s past with 17 minutes, 59 seconds. But he is trying to contribute in other ways – even in the defensive zone. Didn’t happen on every shift. Ovechkin wasn’t credited with a hit and had one takeaway and no blocked shots. But forget the real-time numbers, which are suspect half the time anyway depending on the building, it just seemed Ovechkin was more engaged on Thursday night in other phases of the game than just scoring goals. And that’s a necessary component for the Caps going forward. Either everyone buys in or what’s the point?
“[Ovechkin’s] got so much pressure from everybody to score 60 goals and get 100 points. To me the best players in the game are Zetterburg and Datsyuk and those guys,” Caps goalie Tomas Vokoun said. “They’re not 100-point guys. They’re 80-point guys but they play solid game both ways. And so I think he’s trying to learn to play both ways and be more useful to his team than maybe he was in the past when he had I don’t know how many goals and how many points.”
We’ve seen Ovechkin around the net more this season – even at times on the power play against the Flyers. His first goal was a direct result of being in the right spot when Nick Backstrom’s stuff attempt slid through the crease. Ovechkin made no mistake, slamming home the loose puck. Later, he was effectively covered by Max Talbot, who jumped Ovechkin when he received a pass in the high slot. But Ovechkin still managed to get off a shot. Looked like Talbot kept him from getting full power behind the puck. What emerged was a change-up that took goalie Ilya Bryzgalov by surprise. More from Vokoun:
“When I came here I knew how much expectations were on [Ovechkin] and, trust me, it’s not easy for a guy like that to do everything, to play good defense and produce offensively,” Vokoun said. “Everybody expects so much. You know what? I’m just glad we’re winning. He certainly showed in past games, when he didn’t get big goals, he was still clapping with the team, and he was up for the other guys to score. For me that’s great to see, and the growing up process it takes some time.”
Just as important for the Caps last night: Get ahead early in the third period and keep the Flyers off the board. So often the last three seasons we’ve seen Washington score a goal or two only to give one right back. The Flyers did add one late – but that came from Sean Couturier with 15 seconds left. Far too late. By then Ovechkin’s performance, as Nick Backstrom said afterwards, had given his teammates enough energy to finish the game strong.
“I think [Ovechkin’s] enthusiasm when he’s scoring rubs off on everyone,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. “When he scores he wants to go, go, go and we want to at the same time play the right way and win the right way. These are the type of games that in the past we would have a 5-1 lead and we would end up winning 6-4. I am a little disappointed in them scoring in the last minute, but we wanted to keep it 5-1 and not worry about making it 6-1 but making sure it stayed 5-1.”
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