Canada scored last goal as well. Congratulations.
This was a topic of discussion this morning on Boston sports talk radio. The general consesus was no, not just for Russians, but for others such as Slovaks, Germans and others. The thought was you would be replacing the Olympics and also all the players have to be from NHL teams, could all those countries field a team. There was also a lot of discussion about whether to continue the round robin or do a simple one game elimination. I have no opinion.
Alex Ovechkin is 9 goals away from tying, and 10 goals away from breaking a goals record that was once thought of as impossible to break. This is great for the NHL. I hope he breaks it, as long as he remains healthy (God-willing) then he should get it very late this season and if not then early next.
Boston sucks this year, they are in rebuild mode. He is nothing more than a "rental" for Florida to defend the Cup.
Ovie gets to 888.....my opinion is he gets to withing 2-3 goals this season, and then gets to 895 early next season.
If he didn't miss 16 games, he'd break it this year. I have a colleague who bet $500 6 years ago that he breaks it in 2025 or 2026. It pays $50,000 if he breaks it this year, and $25,000 if he breaks it next year.
Is he? Or are they letting him be on fire? Its pretty clear the NHL (and TV networks) want this broken this year before the playoffs instead of early next year. Early next year it will get half of the eyeballs and attention as everyone pays attention to the race to the World Series and NFL start.
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Yes. Went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. Canes came out on fire. Caps goalkeeper a little shaky. Some chippy and not so chippy plays...the refs kind of let them play but a couple of slashes, late hits, high elbows, that sort of thing were let go. You could see these two teams figure they'll probably meet in playoffs, and do not like each other. Things broke out third period. The Chatfield body slam has gotten a lot of video. The game was a sellout but a fair amount of empty seats. The game was broadcast by our local powerhouse channel and I think a bunch of people stayed home to watch. Weather was fine.
I guess I should have mentioned Ovie scored on a 5 on 3 late in second period to account for Caps' lone marker
There is no chance anyone is letting Ovie score goals. Nobody wants be the one to be known as the team or the goalie that allowed the 895th goal on them. He is a goal machine, from the minute he entered the NHL (hat trick in his very first game), and has been consistent his entire career. Gretzky scored 9 goals his final season at age 39. Ovechkin was on pace to score almost 60 this season until he broke his leg, and he very well would have gotten to 50 goals this year if not.
The goal he scored vs. Canes, Mike, (admittedly on a 5 on 3 PP), was like about 500 others of his I have seen. Creeping in from left wing, about 20 feet inside the blue line, gets a sliding pass and one times it at a thousand miles an hour. This time lower right corner of net. Goalie no chance even though he knew it was coming.
Considering that in the NBA the stars jump around from team to team, while Ovechkin has been with the same team for his entire NHL career (20 seasons)!
Radio yak guys were saying he's playing several shifts, plus the end of the game looking for an empty netter, what have you seen? I LIKE the guy - I have no problem with him, but I am more interested in total points, not just goals, if all I want is goals, there is Phil Esposito, who would just park in front of the goaltender, LOL I'm cro-magnon - I'm still not used to everyone wearing helmets, ads on the ice, ads on the boards, I still have all of my ancient equipment - including full wood sticks, Sherwood, Titan, Northland...
I'm happy for Ovi. Its an amazing achievement and he deserves all the praise for his accomplishment. I'm really shocked at his performance this year. Most impressive. Gretsky was barely hanging on at this time in his career. Ovi is having a great year. Happy for the Caps. They stuck with him 20 years and it paid off. Not sure how many teams would have done that. But for the NHL, I don't think Ovi is very marketable where Gretzky was -- and still is. So it might be a bit of a minus -- starting with the microphone that didn't work. And if I could, as a person who lived in LA before and after Gretsky came -- he was Babe Ruth. When he came to LA hockey fans and attention exploded. It was shocking the media attention he got. LA was a Laker town. Suddenly it had its own hockey superstar overnight. I don't know any player who could have done that other than Wayne. I think Wayne was the person who was more than a great hockey player. He grew the league and made the sport more mainstream like Babe Ruth did to baseball. He WAS the new NHL as it moved out of the goon era, expanded its markets, and grew.
