{"id":221928,"date":"2025-10-18T05:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221928\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T05:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:01:09","slug":"ovechkin-closes-in-on-900-career-goals-with-1st-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221928\/","title":{"rendered":"Ovechkin closes in on 900 career goals with 1st of season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ovechkin picked up his third assist of the season by setting up Strome\u2019s goal that gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead at 17:52 of the first period. After taking a touch pass from Strome on the rush, Ovechkin carried into the right circle and held the puck as if he was going to shoot, causing goalie Filip Gustavsson<\/a> to hold his position, before passing to Strome driving to the net for the redirect in off his stick blade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to look at what happens,\u201d Ovechkin said. \u201cAnd you can see at first I\u2019m going to take a shot and \u2018Stromer\u2019 did a great job to go far post.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the teams exchanged goals in the second period, Strome repaid the favor by setting up Ovechkin\u2019s goal 1:19 into the third period that increased Washington\u2019s lead to 3-1. Strome won the right circle face-off against Wild center Ryan Hartman<\/a> to Ovechkin at the inner rim of the circle. Ovechkin got the puck off his stick quickly and it sailed past Gustavsson\u2019s blocker before going in off the far post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been getting chances,\u201d Strome said. \u201cWe’ve had four or five chances in each of the games and just haven’t been putting them in the right spots for him to bury them. Luckily off the face-off, it went right to his favorite spot there and he put it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Ovechkin\u2019s 21st goal in 26 career games against Minnesota. His rate of 0.81 goals per game against the Wild is his highest against any team. With his goal and assist Friday, Ovechkin has 40 points (21 goals, 19 assists) against the Wild for a rate of 1.54 point per game that is also his highest against any opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a tough guy to contain,\u201d Wild coach John Hynes said. \u201cObviously. He had the nice goal on the face-off. He\u2019s a guy you have to be aware of. We just didn\u2019t execute in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Ovechkin and Strome breaking out offensively, it was the Capitals’ most complete effort of the young season. They outshot the Wild 45-14 and controlled play for most of the night. Washington\u2019s power play, which was 1-for-11 entering the night, went 1-for-5 and its penalty kill held Minnesota\u2019s previously scorching power play (9-for-18 in the previous three games) without a goal in two opportunities.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin didn\u2019t sound satisfied, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we still have to improve ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, the power play has to make some adjustments, but we\u2019re working on it. This is our fifth game, and sometimes you just need a couple games to feel the puck, to feel the rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ovechkin picked up his third assist of the season by setting up Strome\u2019s goal that gave the Capitals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-221928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}