NO GORDIE FOR YOU !

Some will try and tell you that the Washington Capital’s Captain Alexander Ovechkin is already the best goal scorer of all time.  Better than Mike Bossy, the Rocket, Big Phil, the Golden Brett or his dad Bobby.  Even better than Wayne, Gordie, or Mario.  They will all tell you that he has played through a tighter checking era where goalies are bigger and more agile.  That argument will carry through to barstools across the land.  He’s at 800 one behind Gordie and 94 behind Wayne with plenty of gas in the tank.

The Toronto Maple Leafs moved into the Capitol One Arena to try and shut him down.  Led by a motivated castoff in Ilya Samsonov, himself on a 2 shutout in a row heater, the Leafs will try to bounce back from a rare loss to get back on track.

Thursday’s game in New York is what they now refer to as a “low event” game.  Tonight’s first period in Washington was the exact opposite.  Right from the get-go it was “your try”, “OK your try”, back and forth at high speed.  It’s kind of a shame that the goose egg was broken by Erik Gustaven’s cheapie to break Samsonov’s 163 minute shutout streak.   That was followed quickly by 2 great opportunities from a rejuvenated Alex Kerfoot.  Eventually, William Nylander got the Leafs back involved with help from Tavares and Kerfoot (his 8^th point in 9 games).   The Caps weren’t done yet as Van Riemsdyk was credited with a bit of a softie off a deflection to give the Caps the lead back.

While everyone was looking for the coronation of OVIE, the Caps defence popped their third of the game when Gustaven made it 3-1 early in the second.  Austin Mathews must have always looked up to OVIE as a kid.  His motivation tonight goes without saying.  On a 1 on 4 , he brought his team back to within striking distance with a patented wrister from newly minted RD juggernaut Connor Timmins, his 5^th assist in 5 games.  A couple of hillites:  OV passed when he could have scored and then Captain Johhny was fed by Marner for what have surely been a goal.

The Washington defence corps turned out to be the stars of this game.  Garnett Hathaway basically put the game away at the :10 second mark. Eric Gustavsen made his hat trick (his first 3 goals of the season BTW) to close things out at 5-2 Capitals.

HOPPER NOTES: Sometimes, people forget that the Great 8 is also number 4 all time in hits…Austin Mathews had to have been motivated tonight – scoring one of his beauts…one of the stars had to be Charlie Lindgren in net for the Caps – the 28 year old had 31 stops – a lot of them difficult…I believe that Ashton-Reese is better than that other hyphenated guy we used to have…is Captain Johnny hurting a little bit ?  He used have a lot more ZIP in his game…how long will the Washington window be open with 14 – 30+ guys ? …guys I wish I had on my team:  Eugenie Kuznetzov…if you can, please give your nearest loved one a HUGE hug – CHEERS !