The National Hockey League’s top scorer was on the ice for plenty of goals Thursday night. Trouble was, they were all against his team.
In a hockey world most recently torn on the value of the plus-minus statistic, Alex Ovechkin was a minus-five for the Washington Capitals in a 5-2 loss. It’s hard to argue against the validity of that statistics in this particular case. He was on the ice for every Columbus goal, as the Capitals were flat for most of Thursday’s game, until the third period when they were down by three goals.
#Caps Ovechkin was minus-5 tonight. Elias Sports Bureau says it's a career low for him.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) January 31, 2014
Oates on the #Caps start “We were terrible. It was probably the worst period that I’ve seen the boys play in over a year.”
— Katie Carrera (@kcarrera) January 31, 2014
Making matters worse: Washington’s defenseman Mike Green left the game in the first period and did not return, after suffering an upper-body injury when he was hit into the end boards by Columbus forward Boone Jenner (click here to see the video).
By the way, the highlight below is Ryan Johansen’s goal, his 21st of the season, in the second period to put Columbus up by four goals. The Capitals, including Ovechkin, did a lot of standing around and watching on this goal.