Ovechkin and goal #812: Semin in the stands, draw with Crosby, victorious hypnosis of Kuznetsov

With each new season, the matches between Washington and Pittsburgh look more and more like meeting old friends – superstars are getting older, and their teams are far from the days when they happily fought for the first places in the conference. Now it would be in the playoffs for the wild card to go.

The once irreconcilable rivals show maximum respect for each other – here Alexander Ovechkin is cheering up Chris Letang, who has the most difficult season (second stroke, death of his father).

But once the puck is dropped, it’s still a classic Caps-Penguins showdown! Letang is already fighting – of course, not with Ovechkin, but with Manta. We ate on the patch:

Ovechkin in the very first shifts applied Dumulin and Genzel with hits, and then switched to other people’s gates. Even in the first period, the Russian classics of “Washington” turned out: in the majority, from the office, from the programs of Orlov and Kuznetsov. Check out Alexander’s movements throughout the attack – he didn’t move at all and was still ready for a lightning-fast throw.

“I think we all knew: we need to show that we are stronger and try to come out ahead,” Ovechkin assessed the match. “We understood that if we took the lead, then everyone would feel much better.”

So, Alexander scored goal number 812 – by the way, on Wayne Gretzky’s birthday. There are no records here, but we note a couple of notable movements on the pages of a great history.

Finished in fifth place in goals in early periods:

And fourth in home goals. Yes, yes, he has been the first in the guest list for a long time.

And what about the global race of Ovechkin and Crosby in the scorers table? Crosby maintained a three-point lead by offsetting Ovechkin’s goal by launching a third-period save that was completed by Brian Rust. Sidney scored 1467 points and caught up with Stan Mikita, but so far remains in 16th place, Ovechkin is 17th, 1484 points. So both will soon pass Mikita, but Paul Coffey’s 14th place (1531) is far away – this season it will not be reached.

The Capitals won the shootout – and Evgeny Kuznetsov had a hand in this, again arranging a public hypnosis session. Casey DeSmit couldn’t help it.

Crosby sadly looked at the joy of “Washington”, and all this was observed from the stands by the once active participant in the troubles of these teams – Alexander Semin.

And really, how can you lose here if they came to look at you right from Krasnoyarsk.