Washington Capitals Win 5th Straight Behind Alex Ovechkin’s Hat Trick

The hottest team in the NHL here in mid February is the Washington Capitals who won their fifth straight game on February 11th, beating the coldest team in the league, the Minnesota Wild, 4-3 in St. Paul. The Wild have now lost seven straight and 12 of 13. The Capitals are now 40-9-4 on the season, and with 84 points they are running away in the Metropolitan Division. The second place New York Rangers have 67 points.

Alex Ovechkin scored three goals for the Capitals, all in the second period. It was his first hat trick since December of 2013. Ovechkin now leads the NHL in goals with 34, one more than Chicago’s Patrick Kane. (Kane still leads in total points with 77). Ovechkin now has scored 509 goals in his career, third best among active players. He passed former Montreal Canadiens great Jean Beliveau to move into 39th place overall.

The Capitals are doing well now, but it remains to be seen if they’ll continue to do so come playoff time. Since their creation in 1974, Washington has qualified for the playoffs in 25 of their seasons, but has made it to the Stanley Cup Finals only once, losing in four straight to the Detroit Redwings in the 1997-98 season finals.

Here’s a link to video of the game highlights. The NHL has redesigned their website and apparently decided that embeddable video is a Bad Thing, as they have disabled embedding even on YouTube, like the NFL does. The NFL can get away with it, but the NHL is shooting themselves in the foot with such a policy we believe.