Alexander Ovechkin went into the Washington Capitals’ game last night against the Detroit Red Wings with a chance to make history. His 483rd career goal on Sunday against Toronto tied Sergei Fedorov for the most goals in the NHL by a Russian-born player. Instead, on Tuesday Ovechkin nearly made history in a different way. He took an astounding total of 15 shots at goalie Petr Mrazek, and was denied every time.
In fact, Mrazek stopped every Capitals player’s shots, all 38 of them, en route to his sixth career shutout and a 1-0 victory for the Red Wings. Ovechkin certainly can’t be blamed for not trying here. Look at how frustrating his night was:
Ovechkin’s 15 shots are the most by any player without scoring a goal since 1967-68. The record for most shots in a game is held jointly by Ray Bourque (1991) and Gordie Howe (1955) at 19, although Bourque managed to put one past goalie Ron Tugnutt, who made 70 saves that night (Howe, like Ovechkin, was kept scoreless).
This isn’t totally unusual for Ovechkin, either. He has played 17 games in his career with at least 10 shots on net and no goals. Of course, he absolutely will break Fedorov’s record, sooner rather than later. The Capitals play Philadelphia later this week, so we could well see it broken then. Either way, Ovechkin has lots of time. He tied Fedorov in just over half as many games as it took the newly-inducted Hall of Famer (772 games for Ovechkin, 1248 for Fedorov).
Of course, Ovechkin may have been distracted trying to go for Mike Green’s stick all night.
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