WASHINGTON — Alex Ovechkin scored his 878th career goal into an empty net with 0.1 seconds left on the clock to move closer to Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record, and the Washington Capitals defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers 6-3 on Tuesday night.
According to ESPN Research, Ovechkin registered a goal at 19:59 of the third period for the fourth time in his career, and three of them came with an empty net. It has been a while, though, as his last time was back on Dec. 9, 2014, against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ovechkin is just 17 goals away from breaking Gretzky’s mark of 894, a feat that once seemed unapproachable. The Capitals have 29 games left for him to get to 895 or beyond this season, though he has another year left on his contract.
“That’s good that he scored,” teammate Aliaksei Protas said of the Capitals’ captain on the Monumental Sports Network postgame show. “It’s great for everyone.”
According to ESPN Research, Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leader in empty-net tallies, reached 25 goals for the 19th time in his career, breaking a tie with Jaromir Jagr for the second most in history. He trails only Gordie Howe, at 20.
“In true [Ovechkin] fashion, right, 0.01,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said in his postgame media availability. “We’ll take it.”
Tuesday’s goal put an exclamation point on a rousing victory in a battle between two of the Eastern Conference’s top teams. Andrew Mangiapane, Tom Wilson, Lars Eller and Nic Dowd also scored for the Capitals, who had their way with two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, and Protas also had an empty-netter.
“They’re a fast team, so I think we knew that going into it,” Mangiapane said of the Panthers. “I felt like we did a decent job of wearing out their [defense].”
Logan Thompson, among the current contenders for the Vezina award, stopped 31 of the 34 shots he faced to help Washington avoid losing three in a row.
“They capitalized on their looks,” Florida forward Sam Bennett said of the Capitals. “I think we were pushing a little bit too hard for a goal, and came up with a couple too many odd-man [rushes], gave them too many scoring chances. And they capitalized.”
A day after visiting the White House and meeting President Donald Trump to celebrate the franchise’s first title, Florida saw its winning streak end at three despite goals from Bennett, Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk and 21 saves by Bobrovsky.
“The margin for error, against two good teams, is pretty tight,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “We had two or three guys who had kind of off nights, but other than that, it was a reasonably well-played game.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.