Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin made hockey historical past Wednesday night time, changing into the primary NHL participant to attain 900 profession objectives. Ovechkin was ultimately provided that record-setting puck — as soon as St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington stopped hiding it in his pants.
Within the second interval of the Capitals’ 6-1 rout, Ovechkin intercepted Binnington’s go to teammate Nathan Walker. The puck ultimately discovered Washington defenseman Jakob Chychrun for a shot from the purpose that bounced off the tip boards. Ovechkin collected the rebound and rapidly slid a backhand shot into the Blues’ web for his third objective of the season. The NHL’s all-time main objective scorer additionally grew to become its first 900-goal scorer.
Because the Capitals celebrated with Ovechkin, Binnington nudged the puck out of the online together with his stick and picked it up together with his goalie glove. He tucked his stick underneath his arm, pulled his hand out of his blocker and plucked the puck from his glove. He then tucked the disc into the again of his pants, in full view of tv cameras.
Later, linesman Michel Cormier had a dialogue with Binnington in his crease, after which the Blues goalie reached again into his pants and handed the 900th objective puck to the official.
Ovechkin posed for pictures with the milestone puck within the Capitals’ locker room after the sport.
Binnington gave up 4 objectives on 15 pictures in opposition to Washington and was pulled at 9:28 of the second interval. He did not converse to reporters after the sport.
The state of affairs wasn’t addressed by his teammates or coach Jim Montgomery, who mentioned the Capitals have been fueled by Ovechkin’s historic second within the second interval.
“I feel it had lots to do with their success. For us, we did not deal with the second properly sufficient, that is for certain,” he mentioned.
Ovechkin mentioned he was conscious his history-making puck needed to be retrieved from Binnington’s pants.
“Yeah, I simply noticed it. I am not going to remark,” he mentioned.
Capitals goalie Logan Thompson did not see Binnington swipe the puck however was keen to provide his counterpart the advantage of the doubt.
“I used to be simply so completely happy that ‘O’ obtained it. Do not know, possibly he was making an attempt to seize it to provide it to him. Who is aware of?” mentioned Thompson, who made 23 saves within the win.
Ovechkin was relieved to get No. 900 and make historical past.
“A few days in the past anyone requested me about, ‘Do you concentrate on it?’ After all. It is an enormous quantity,” Ovechkin mentioned. “Nobody ever did it in NHL historical past and be the primary participant ever do it’s a particular second.”