The Chicago Blackhawks will pay a visit to the Washington Capitals on Friday night. Even though the Capitals have their playoff spot wrapped up and the Blackhawks are nowhere near contention, this game could be special.
In their most recent game, Washington captain Alexander Ovechkin scored his 39th of the season. He is now sitting on 892 career goals.
That is two shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all time mark of 894. Three more goals for Ovechkin will make him the NHL’s leader in career goals which is a record that was once considered unbeatable.
If Ovechkin has a hat trick against the Blackhawks on Friday night, it will go down as one of the most memorable games in NHL history.
Correctly predicting a player to score a hat-trick on a specific night isn't easy. However, Ovechkin has reached a major goal-scoring milestone by scoring a hat trick against the Blackhawks once before.
On December 13th, 2022, Ovechkin tallied career goals 798, 799, and 800 in the same game against Chicago at the United Center. It would be hockey poetry if he completed a hat trick to break the record against the Hawks in Washington this time around.
Ovechkin has 32 career hat tricks. His most recent one came on February 23rd against the Edmonton Oilers, so it isn't out of the question for him to do this.
The Blackhawks are not that great of a defensive team, so he may come into this one dreaming big. If the Capitals can bait Chicago into a chance-for-chance type of game, Ovechkin has what it takes to do the deed.
If Ovechkin doesn't end this chase on Friday night, he will still have six more chances this season to finish it off. Spencer Knight or Arvid Soderblom likely don't want to be the goaltender who allows the big goal, but it will have to be someone in the coming days.
