Alex Ovechkin has drawn a lot of attention in his quest for Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record. Ovechkin is 31 behind The Great One and he is still scoring at an impressive clip at age 39.
He will try to move closer to Gretzky when his Washington Capitals play the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night in Denver.
Ovechkin has 10 goals in 15 games thus far and could realistically catch Gretzky this season if he gets on a roll offensively. The fact that he is doing it 10 months before he turns 40 has impressed his teammates and coaches.
“I would not think he’s 39,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “You can’t even wrap your head around the age and being able to play in the best league in the world and the pace of play nowadays.”
Ovechkin has eight goals in the last eight games and twice has scored two goals.
“I know I can’t imagine doing it at 39,” teammate Tom Wilson said. “I don’t think there’ll ever be anybody like him again.”
Friday kicks off a three-game road trip for the Capitals and is the first of two meetings against Colorado within a week. The Avalanche are in Washington on Nov. 21.
The Capitals are coming off a disappointing 4-3 overtime home loss to Toronto on Wednesday night. Washington had a two-goal lead entering the third period but the Maple Leafs sent it to overtime and won it with 47 seconds left.
“The way that that game played out, just embarrassing,” Carbery said. “Flat out. That’s unrecognizable from our team. Playing a team on the second of (a) back-to-back.”
Colorado is coming off a 4-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night and has a chance to sweep its four-game homestand. The Avalanche lost five of their first seven at home but have won the last four in Denver, and four of five overall, behind solid goaltending and big games from their stars.
Mikko Rantanen had a natural hat trick and Nathan MacKinnon had three assists against the Kings, and now help is on the way.
Forwards Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin and Miles Wood are expected to play Friday, which will strengthen the top lines. Nichushkin has been suspended since the second round of the 2024 playoffs under the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program, and Drouin has not played since suffering an upper-body injury in the first game of the season.
Drouin and Wood, who has not played since Oct. 28 due to an upper-body injury, were activated from the injured list on Thursday.
The three will rejoin a team that has played well lately.
“We’re all excited to add guys back in the line, especially the caliber players that are coming back in, but I’m more excited like the way our team’s been playing over the last half a dozen games,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “We add more guys into it. As long as we don’t change anything when it comes to the points that we’ve been hammering home and continue to play the way we’ve been playing.”
–Field Level Media