Alex Ovechkin scored his 880th, 881st and 882nd career goals to record a hat trick and move 13 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record and give the Washington Capitals a 7-3 victory over Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday, moving back atop the league standings.
“Everybody’s just got to be a little bit better,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the loss. “Whether that’s on our backchecks, our breakouts, our passing, our penalty kill — everything could be a little bit better.”
Ovechkin beat Calvin Pickard clean with a wrist shot just before the midway mark of the second period off a pass from linemate Dylan Strome for his first of the game. He got his second on the power play 10 minutes later and put the puck into an empty net with 2:38 left for his third.
Pickard became the 181st goaltender he has scored on, already the most of any player after Ovechkin broke Jaromir Jagr’s mark earlier last month. With his 134th game-winning goal, he also tied Jagr for the most in NHL history.
Tom Wilson, Jakob Chychrun, Connor McMichael and Strome also scored and Charlie Lindgren made 22 saves for the Capitals, who won back-to-back matinees out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break. They outscored the Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins 15-6.
The Oilers lost their third in a row dating to before the break, despite Leon Draisaitl scoring his league-leading 42nd goal this season. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jeff Skinner scored in the third, long after the game got out of hand, and Pickard allowed six goals on 32 shots.
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“Sometimes this happens after breaks,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “Some teams come out flying, some teams come out flat — we’ve obviously done the latter.”
Takeaways
Oilers: The road trip is off to a rough start, and the schedule doesn’t get any easier from here.
Capitals: It’s time to say they are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
Key moment
Ovechkin one-timed a pass from Chychrun past Pickard late in the second to open the floodgates.
Key stat
Strome has assisted on 16 of Ovechkin’s 29 goals this season.
Up next
The Oilers visit Tampa Bay on Tuesday, the same night the Capitals host Calgary.
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