It’s not often you get to see sports history unfolding before your eyes but that’s exactly what’s happening with Alex Ovechkin.
The now 36-year old winger is taking a serious run at Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record for goals and based on his start to this season, it certainly within his grasp. He comes into tonight with 735 goals in his NHL career, good enough for 5th all-time. He still trails Gretzky’s mark by 159, which seems like a lot at this stage of his career, but less so when you consider Ovechkin is showing no real signs of slowing down.
For those keeping track at home, 31 of those goals have been scored against the Ottawa Senators. Let’s keep it that way, shall we.
The Ottawa Senators host Alex Ovechkin and the undefeated Washington Capitals on Monday night.
On the Ottawa side of things, the focus is on bouncing back from a painful loss on Saturday afternoon. They played a fairly flawless 54 minutes before the wheels came off late against the Rangers. Of course the referees may loosened the ol’ lug nuts a little bit for them but you get the point. Plenty of positives to take away from that effort though.
The Senators have started the season 2-3-0 but they have been competitive in every game and with a few breaks, two or three of those losses could have gone the other way. And while the injuries are piling up a little bit, they have to be feeling pretty good about where their game is at right now.
Of course, the Nation’s Capital is still buzzing from the Sunday night acquisition of Dylan Gambrell. While that may be a slight/extreme exaggeration, the Senators did make a minor move on Sunday. Gambrell is a 25-year old centre that hasn’t been able to carve out a role for himself in the San Jose Sharks lineup despite some fairly productive years in the NCAA and in the American Hockey League.
It’s a band-aid solution more than anything but Dorion had to do something. And in this case, the price was right. The organization, both at the NHL and AHL level, is pretty desperate for help at centre and the hope is Gambrell can fill a spot on the depth chart in the short-term. Here’s Dorion on what Gambrell brings to the lineup.
“Dylan’s a player whose progress we’ve monitored since his collegiate career at the University of Denver. He’s a good-skating centre, a strong checker and a responsible penalty killer. We have a void at centre on account of some recent injuries and Dylan will help us with that need.”
Gambrell is expected to join the team at practice this week and will likely join the team on the road trip.
We now interrupt your usual Game Day post for Zub.
Zub.
No game day twirl this morning but DJ Smith met with the media and outlined a few notes on the plans for tonight. Scott Sabourin draws in and no changes expected on the blueline.
Here’s how they looked at yesterday’s practice.
Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson
Stützle-Paul-Brown
Formenton-Tierney-Ennis
Sanford-Shaw-Sabourin
Chabot-Zub
Holden-Zaitsev
Mete-Brown
Anton Forsberg gets the start in goal. Some good news on the injury front as it sounds like Matt Murray will join the team on the upcoming road trip.
Puck drop is scheduled for exactly 480 seconds after the seven o’clock hour. Tonight’s game is available on Sportsnet One, RDS and on the radio at TSN1200. For those of you that realize at the last minute that you don’t know what Sportsnet One is or subscribe to it, there should streams available in the comment section below.
Here’s a closer look at how these teams match up, via the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 3-0-2 (8 pts) | 2-3-0 (4 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.80 (T-8th) | 2.00 (T-26th) |
| Goals Against | 2.20 (5th) | 2.40 (9th) |
| Power Play | 15.0% (25th) | 25.0% (12th) |
| Penalty Kill | 71.4% (27th) | 76.5% (23rd) |
| Shots For | 30.4 (20th) | 28.6 (T-24th) |
| Shots Against | 25.6 (1st) | 32.2 (19th) |
| Leading Scorers | Ovechkin- 10 pts Kuznetsov- 9 pts Wilson- 6 pts Mantha- 3 pts Orlov- 3 pts |
Brown- 4 pts Ennis- 3 pts Tierney- 3 pts Batherson- 2 pts Stützle- 2 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Ilya Samsonov 1-0-1 2.33 GAA, .902 sv% |
Anton Forsberg 1-2-0 3.44 GAA, .913 sv% |
