Ovechkin leads Capitals into second round by scoring, hitting

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Alex Ovechkin is four months away from turning 40 and still was among the Washington Capitals' most consistent hitters in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

Color his teammates unsurprised.

“He’s one of a kind," Tom Wilson said. “He’s a machine. He’s built different.”

Ovechkin led the Capitals into the second round for the first time since captaining them to the Stanley Cup in 2018, scoring four goals and finishing with 19 hits to set up a showdown with the Carolina Hurricanes.

The best-of-seven series starts Tuesday, exactly a month after Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky's career goals record, and he's expected to keep this up moving forward because he has been a physical force his entire career with a style that fits perfectly in playoff hockey.

“He’s done it ever since I’ve been here, so I don’t see why he won’t keep doing it,” said Wilson, who has played with Ovechkin since 2013. "He’s definitely our energy. He’s kind of our everything on any given night. He goes out there and leads the way, and that’s what a captain does. He can be a guy that goes out and gets the momentum going for us early in a game or whenever we need it.”

Ovechkin's first act of his 16th trip to the postseason was a hit on Montreal's Mike Matheson 20 seconds into that series opener, which he finished with his first overtime playoff goal. He laid out Jake Evans with a (penalized) open-ice check late in the second period of a Game 4 comeback victory, then scored again in the Game 5 clincher.

“He was outstanding the whole series,” said Spencer Carbery, who's expected to win the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year for getting Washington to the top of the Eastern Conference above preseason expectations.

“He scored some big goals, I felt like, through this series. And I’m proud of him because it’s a long time to sit on last year and last year’s playoffs and have to run that through your mind.”

Last year's playoffs did not go well for Ovechkin and the Capitals. They were swept by the Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers, and Ovechkin did not register a point in a series for the first time in his two decades in the NHL.

Ovechkin looked like a motivated competitor this time, even though he brushed off the concept of redeeming himself for not scoring in the Rangers series.

“I mean, you just take it game by game,” Ovechkin said. “What happened in the past and what happened in the regular season is over.”

What happened in the regular season was Ovechkin taking over the spotlight in sports and beyond it by chasing Gretzky's record of 894 that was long thought to be unapproachable and becoming the league's all-time leading goal scorer by getting a flurry of six in five games.

He also did it with enough time left in the regular season for Ovechkin and the Capitals to move past the record and set their sights on a second championship.

“For him to break the record and then be able to reset and refocus, and now (say), ‘OK, this is what means more to me than the record,’ which is amazing in itself, to get himself to the spot where he played this playoffs comparatively to last year, it’s night and day,” Carbery said. "He’s a year older. He’s 39 years old. And that’s a credit to him. He just continues to do things that you just can’t wrap your head around in this sport, in this league — and then at the most difficult time of the year, the Stanley Cup Playoffs.”

Linemate Dylan Strome, Washington's leading scorer in the first round with nine points, thinks Ovechkin is doing the same things he has been all season, with a little more physicality mixed in.

“Still getting his shots off, still has great chances to score, still finding ways to get open, and I thought he’s done a really good job,” said Strome, who this season assisted on 23 of Ovechkin's 44 goals to get him to 897 in his career. "He kind of leads the way for our team in setting the tone and getting the first goal usually, so he kind of brings our team into it and we just follow behind.”

Wilson, Strome and John Carlson have lived that for a long time. Anthony Beauvillier has quickly since joining at the trade deadline in March found out what it's like to play alongside Ovechkin and watch up close as he drags the Capitals into the fight.

“He wants to show the way, and everyone jumps on the boat with him," Beauvillier. "To see him do that and score big goals and have some big hits, how can you not get fired up and follow him?”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl