Alex Ovechkin played a huge part in today’s game for Washington in spite of the Caps losing 4-3 in overtime. Ovechkin had a goal and two assists factoring in on all of Washington’s goals. If you asked Pens fans, however, they’d tell you that Ovechkin maybe shouldn’t have been in the game at all thanks to his hit on Zbynek Michalek in the second period.
Ovechkin appeared to leave his feet when hitting Michalek in the corner. Making matters worse he appeared to hit Michalek in the head. Have a look.
Of course, for all the yelling from Pens fans about that, Michalek was no saint himself. Michalek, shortly after getting rung up by Ovechkin, delivered a highly dubious hit of his own to Capitals forward Matt Hendricks.
Michalek got two minutes for elbowing on the play and perhaps deserved more. Could both of these hits wind up on Brendan Shanahan’s radar? Possibly.
Ovechkin has a previous record of being suspended while Michalek’s elbow from behind connected with Hendricks’ head. Any blows to the head are going to get looked at closer and to see Shanahan step in on either of these plays won’t be surprising.