Milestone night ends in easy win for Caps

By: Justin Creech
Washington, DC—In a season full of milestones, the Washington Capitals added two more last night and came within reach of a third.
Nicklas Backstrom recorded the first 100 point season of his career with an assist early in the third period, and Alex Ovechkin scored his 50th goal of the season on the same play to push the Caps to a 5-2 win and to within two points of the franchise’s first 120 point season.
Backstrom, who finished with two goals himself (32, 33), pushed his point total to 101 with the secondary assist on as Ovechkin gave the Capitals the lead for good at 9:49 of the third on a wicked wrist shot that beat the Thrashers Ondrej Pavelec low to the blocker side.
Ovechkin, who also scored the game tying goal at 16:04 of the second period, finished with three points (2g, 1a) pulled ahead in the race for the Maurice “Rocket” Richard trophy and the Art Ross Trophy. Ovechkin now holds a 50-49 edge over the Penguins Sidney Crosby for the “Rocket” Richard trophy, and a one point lead, 109-108, over the Canucks Henrik Sedin for the Art Ross.
Pittsburgh has two games remaining, one on the road in Atlanta tomorrow night and one Sunday afternoon in Long Island. The Canucks wrap up their season tomorrow night at home against the Calgary Flames.
“Well, it’s a pretty big number, especially when you miss a couple games to suspension and got injured,” said Ovechkin of goal number 50. “You always want to score 50 goals, but sometimes you don’t have luck. Sometimes you just miss chances. But today, I think our line played well. Backy [Nicklas Backstrom] gets three points and I think Sasha [Alexander Semin] get three points. So, our line played
The goal marked the fourth time in his five year career that Ovechkin reached the 50 goal plateau, joining Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy as the only players to do so. It also marked the first time Ovechkin has recorded multiple goals in consecutive games. The last time he achieved that feat was October 27th and 29th.
After corralling the puck in the neutral zone, Backstrom passed to Semin, who upon skating into the Thrashers zone sent a cross ice pass to Ovechkin. Ovechkin cut to the middle of the ice and fired a wrist shot from the high slot that beat Thrashers netminder Ondrej Pavelec low to the blocker side to give the Capitals a 3-2 lead.
“It’s great because he’s a great scorer,” said Backstrom. “I’m always trying to set him up and he’s a great player- probably the best player in the world. So, it’s always good to see other people reach their milestones.”
Capitals Coach Bruce Boudreau spoke glowingly about Backstrom after the game saying how proud he was of his 22 year old first line center to reach the 100 point mark.
“He’s such a great young man,” said Boudreau. “You like to see great people succeed. I’m sitting there thinking ‘Nicky just got his hundredth and Alex just got his 50th, who’s picking up the puck?’ It shows that he’s one of the elite players in the league and he does it every night.”
Ovechkin and Backstrom came together in the locker room and took a picture with both players holding the milestone achieving puck. When asked about what they were going to do with the puck, both players joked that they are going to split it, but neither knew exactly how they were going to do that.
Backstrom also admitted that Ovechkin mentioned achieving the milestones before the game.
“When I came here at 5 o’clock, he said to me, ‘Hey Backy are we going to score tonight?’ I said ‘Yea, why not?’ So it was kind of funny.”
After Backstrom gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead at 14:44 of the first period, the Thrashers were able to grab a 2-1 lead at 13:07 on a short-handed goal by Clarke McArthur, who intercepted Ovechkin’s attempted pass to Mike Green in the Capitals zone, and out raced Ovechkin and Green before beating Jose Theodore high to the glove side.
The goal was momentarily reviewed, but was ruled a good goal.
Washington didn’t wait long, though, as Ovechkin tied the game 2:57 later on a slap shot from the point on a pass from Semin.
After Ovechkin gave the Capitals the lead, Jason Chimera scored his first goal since March 16 on a slap shot from the high slot at 12:16. The Capitals final goal came from Backstrom after he poked in a rebound of Semins’ shot from the right circle at 13:05.
With wins in five straight games, the Capitals feel they are right where they need to be entering the playoffs.
“I think it’s the gradual maturity and growth from 21 year old kids who were very talented who are now 24 and 25 and have gone through the wars together,” said Boudreau. “They play for each other so well. That’s the biggest thing, they want the other prize.”