{"id":546882,"date":"2026-03-19T14:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546882\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T14:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:08:10","slug":"alex-ovechkin-scores-his-922nd-goal-cole-hutson-scores-in-nhl-debut-as-washington-capitals-beat-ottawa-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546882\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin scores his 922nd goal, Cole Hutson scores in NHL debut as Washington Capitals beat Ottawa Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Alex Ovechkin<\/a> scored his 922nd goal and Cole Hutson scored his first to lead the Washington Capitals<\/a> past the Ottawa Senators<\/a> 4-1 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin is a goal shy of 1,000 \u2014 if his 77 postseason tallies are included.<\/p>\n

The Capitals are still six points out of a playoff spot with time running out, but this was an encouraging night for the franchise. Hutson made his NHL debut less than a week after the end of his season at Boston University, and the 19-year-old defenseman showed off his smooth skating and stickhandling throughout the night, finally scoring into an empty net with 25.7 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

It was the 40-year-old Ovechkin who opened the scoring in the second period when Rasmus Sandin<\/a>\u2019s pass bounced off his right skate past goalie Linus Ullmark<\/a>. That momentarily gave Ovechkin sole possession of the team lead in goals this season with 25, but then Tom Wilson<\/a> beat Ullmark later in the period for his 25th.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin has led the Caps in goals in all 20 seasons of his career, sharing the top spot only once \u2014 with T.J. Oshie<\/a> in 2016-17.<\/p>\n

With Ullmark pulled, Tim Stutzle poked the puck past Capitals goalie Logan Thompson<\/a> with 2:41 left in the third to spoil the shutout, but Aliaksei Protas<\/a> scored into an empty net for Washington just over a minute later. Then Hutson did likewise, to the delight of a home crowd that had been practically cheering his every move.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin\u2019s goal was the 450th of his career at home, moving him past Gordie Howe<\/a> into sole possession of second place behind Wayne Gretzky<\/a> (492).<\/p>\n

Although Gretzky lost his career mark for regular-season goals to Ovechkin last season, he\u2019s the only player who has reached 1,000 with the playoffs included. He finished with 1,016.<\/p>\n

Ottawa remained five points out of a playoff spot after losing in regulation for just the third time in 16 games.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Senators: Host the New York Islanders<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Capitals: Host New Jersey on Friday night.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n

Noah Trister, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Alex Ovechkin scored his 922nd goal and Cole Hutson scored his first to lead the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-546882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}