Washington: Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin became Saturday the first player in a century to notch back-to-back hat tricks in the first two games of an NHL season.
Russia’s Ovechkin followed up his opening night hat trick with a four-goal performance on in the Capitals’ 6-1 rout of the Montreal Canadiens.
Ovechkin became just the fourth NHL player to have a hat-trick in each of his team’s first two games of a season and the first since 1917 — when three players did it.
After scoring three goals in the third period of Thursday’s season opener, Ovechkin scored three times in the first period against Montreal. Hats rained onto the ice when he made it 4-0 with 1:50 left in the period.
Ovechkin, who started the scoring just 20 seconds in, picked up his 19th career hat trick to tie him with Peter Bondra for the Capitals’ all-time club lead.
He capped his fourth career four-goal game late in the second period when the rebound of his shot deflected off a Montreal player’s stick into the net.
Ovechkin made it 1-0 on an acrobatic goal when he sped to a loose puck in the Montreal zone, spun and fired high over goaltender Corey Price’s shoulder.
T.J. Oshie put home the rebound of a Nicklas Backstrom shot 26 seconds later, and Ovechkin capped the early barrage with a power-play goal from the left circle at the 2:51 mark.
Ovechkin complete the hat trick when he deflected Evgeny Kuznetsov’s shot past Price.
The Canadiens pulled within 4-1 on Brendan Gallagher’s short-handed goal at 4:50 of the second period, but then Ovechkin and Nate Walker — the first Australian to play in an NHL game — scored less than two minutes apart late in the period.
After scoring just 16 even-strength goals last season, Ovechkin already has six.
Nathan Walker became the first Australian to play in the NHL on Saturday — and made it a dream debut by scoring in the Washington Capitals’ 6-1 defeat of the Montreal Canadiens.
Sydney-raised Walker scored Washington’s sixth goal late in the second period, deflecting in a shot from teammate Devante Smith-Pelly.
The 23-year-old Walker had a long wait before entering the score book, however. The goal was originally credited to Smith-Pelly, but when the change was announced to the crowd during the third period, Walker’s family waved Australian flags in his honour.
“At first I wasn’t 100 per cent sure,” Walker said of his goal, adding he felt in something of a daze in his first game.
“The first couple of shifts I didn’t know what happened.”
