Looking at the calendar, the game Thursday between the Minnesota Wild and visiting Washington Capitals at Xcel Energy Center could have been the night Alex Ovechkin made NHL history. But he came into the game still needing six goals to pass Wayne Gretzky (894 goals) for the most goals scored by a player in NHL history. So, at the very least he could have scored a goal to get a little bit closer to the milestone.

That didn’t happen either. Ovechkin was held off the scoresheet in his 1,482nd NHL game as the Wild captured a comeback 4-2 victory over the Capitals, snapping their two-game losing streak.

So, about that memorable ending?

After Freddy Gaudreau scored an empty-netter for his second goal of the night to put the game away, and the final horn sounded, the Wild congratulated their starting goaltender Filip Gustavsson on his seventh victory of March. Some of the Capitals players made their way toward the tunnel leading to the locker room. Ovechkin called them back to the ice, and the Capitals lined up near center ice to form a handshake line.

They were led by Ovechkin and waiting for one Wild player: Marc-Andre Fleury.

The Wild goaltender has been backing up Gustavsson more often these days, which is more about the hot-hand of Gustavsson and that the Wild are playing for their playoff lives. So, the Flower didn’t start and didn’t play in Thursday’s game.

“It was a little surprise there at the end. Then Bogo (Zach Bogosian) told me to look back,” Fleury said the next day after practice. “Everybody gets on and we fist bump everybody and went to go see Gus after the game. They were all lined up.

“A little surprise. Little bit… weird, I would say. I didn’t play the game, and then the whole team’s lined up. Very classy.”

Ovechkin mentioned Thursday morning that this game would mark the last time going up against Fleury, regardless of if the legendary goaltender played a minute in between the pipes. It’s been one of many memorable moments this season for Fleury, who is on a one-year contract and will likely retire from the NHL after this season.

The handshake tribute after the game was something the Capitals wanted to do, said Washington coach Spencer Carbery.

“Just paying the respects he deserves and the impressive career,” Carbery said. “He’s done so much. They’ve had so many battles. He’s had so many battles with the Caps, with ‘O’ (Ovechkin). So, pretty classy to be able to send him off and just say how impressive a career he had.”

Fleury was one of Charlie Lindgren’s favorite goalies growing up. Lindgren, the 31-year-old Lakeville North grad who made 17 saves for the Capitals in the loss Thursday, said he loved watching him play.

“The way he competed, the way he battled, just his personality,” Lindgren said. “I never had the chance to talk to him. Heck of a career.”

Wild winger Marcus Foligno also mentioned watching a bit of the Ovi-vs.-Fleury rivalry over the years before the he came into the NHL.

“That relationship is a little bit of a hate-love, but it’s one of those where you just tip your cap to the other guys and the battles that you saw in Pittsburgh and Capitals,” Foligno said.

Ovechkin thought the handshake line was a classy gesture, said Washington first-line center Dylan Strome, especially with their history as opponents.

“They played I don’t even know how many games against each other – I think I saw 47 today, not including playoffs,” Strome said. “It’s one of those things where you’ve got to respect greatness, and Fleury’s been great his whole career.

“I got the chance to play with him in Chicago, and everyone knows he’s one of the best people of all time in the game, so the little respect we can show him at the end of the game I think goes a long way and is well deserved for him.”

Yes, it’s been 47 games between the two. Ovechkin has scored 28 goals against Fleury in that time.

“We had so many battles,” Fleury said. “The Penguins, a few playoff series, even throughout the season, too, with him and Sid (Sidney Crosby). It was always a big deal. It was always a big game.

“I felt very lucky and fortunate I got to play so many games against him, compete against him. Obviously, a tough opponent.”

Fleury added that he was glad for the moment so he could tell Ovechkin it was fun playing against him, because “he’s had such a tremendous career also.”

Wild keeps giving Flower his flowers, too
The moment was special for Fleury’s Wild teammates, too. They stayed on the ice watching the handshake line unfold like the rest of the fans who stayed. Hearing players describe Fleury as “one of the best” they’ve ever played with is a common refrain this season.

“It’s special to have that when you quit hockey someday, that you played with that guy, for sure,” said Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin.

Wild coach John Hynes noted what a great teammate Fleury has been everywhere he’s played. Fleury was a Stanley Cup winner in Pittsburgh in 2009, 2016 and 2017. He also played with Vegas and Chicago before landing with the Wild at the 2022 trade deadline.

Fleury deserves all the accolades he’s gotten, Hynes said Thursday, adding that he’s said that same thing a couple of times in the past.

“He’s been a tremendous competitor to compete against. And obviously the quality of a human being that he is, all those things combined, I think we’re witnessing in part of a hall-of-fame player, a hall-of-fame person. That’s earned the respect not only as a player but I think as a competitor. Which is probably the best compliment you can get.”

The post Hall-Of-Fame Handshakes appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But even us curmudgeons had to appreciate what occurred on Thursday night in the Minnesota Wild’s 4-3 shootout victory in Washington.

With Matt Boldy having scored on the Wild’s second attempt, Alexander Ovechkin took the puck on his stick at center ice and skated in on Marc-Andre Fleury.

A 39-year-old legend who was the first-overall pick by Washington in the 2004 NHL draft, bearing down on a 40-year-old goaltender who was the first-overall selection by Pittsburgh a year earlier.

Ovechkin moved right and then back to the middle of the ice before snapping off a shot that Fleury stopped with his glove to set off a celebration among Wild players.

The NHL long ago became a young man’s game, and seeing two Hall of Fame legends competing for one of the final times is a special moment. Even if it was in a shootout.

Fleury has said this will be the last season of his 21-year NHL career. He spent 13 of those seasons competing against Ovechkin with the Penguins in the Eastern Conference. Ovechkin scored a power-play goal against Fleury on Thursday night, giving him 28 regular-season goals against The Flower. That’s more than he’s scored on any goalie.

Ovechkin also had 13 goals against Fleury in the playoffs, but the Penguins were 3-0 in the postseason against the Capitals during Fleury’s time in Pittsburgh. That includes Pittsburgh’s seven-game victory in the 2009 conference semifinals en route to a Stanley Cup title.

“It’s 20 years we play against each other,” Ovechkin told reporters. “It’s always fun. It’s always a challenge. He’s one of the best goalies out there and it’s a huge challenge for me to play against him.”

There could be one more meeting between Fleury and Ovechkin, and it would be more special than the one we saw Thursday.

Ovechkin has 871 career goals, putting him 24 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s time record of 894 goals. The Capitals are scheduled to play 33 games before they face the Wild on March 27 at Xcel Energy Center.

Ovechkin scored 15 goals in his first 18 games of the season before missing 16 because of a fractured fibula, but he has three goals in four games since his return. Could Ovechkin pass Gretzky’s mark in downtown St. Paul?

Fleury probably would be OK if that’s not the case. He already has plenty of memories of Ovechkin scoring goals against him.

“I feel fortunate I was able to play in this time,” Fleury told reporters. “He probably owes me a few things for scoring so many goals on me. I helped him out pretty good. I’m glad I got to face him. He’s one of the best and always brings the best out of you. It’s been fun battles with him.”

A long road (trip)
One can forgive Wild players if they aren’t as excited as Minnesota hockey fans are about the World Junior Championships being held next winter at Xcel Energy Center.

Ottawa is currently playing host to the world juniors and that has sent the Senators on a nine-game road trip in which they are 4-3-0. The tournament started the day after Christmas and runs through Sunday. The Senators last played at the Canadian Tire Centre on Dec. 14.

The 2026 world juniors will begin on Dec. 26, 2025 and run through Jan. 5, 2026. That means that other than the NHL’s holiday break, the Wild will be on a long trip beginning in late December and extending into early January.

The Canadian Tire Centre is the primary venue, hosting a total of 18 games, while TD Place hosted 12 games during the tournament. The secondary venue in Minnesota will be 3M Arena at Mariucci, home of the Gophers men’s hockey team.

It will be the first time the world juniors will be played in Minnesota since 1982. The tournament was conducted in a round-robin format at the time and won by Canada.

The North Stars’ home building, Met Center, hosted a few games but there also were games played in Manitoba, as well as multiple Minnesota cites, including Brainerd, Burnsville, Duluth, Grand Rapids, International Falls, Mankato, New Ulm, Rochester, St. Cloud and Virginia.

That’s no longer the case because the world juniors have become big business. 

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Nate Schmidt’s play and enthusiasm are making him a favorite in Washington

What does a visiting NHL player do when he has a free night in St. Paul? He goes to Lake Calhoun, of course.

That’s what Washington Capitals defenseman Nate Schmidt did anyway the night before the Wild hosted the Caps at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday night.

The St. Cloud native, and Cathedral grad, who registered 72 points (12g, 62a) in 96 games with University of Minnesota from 2010-13, took advantage of the opportunity to head to a cousin’s home for a rare in-season gathering with his parents, brother and extended family members.

“Ordered some sushi and it was really fun,” Schmidt said. “It’s good to see some of them again.”

But on Thursday night Schmidt was back at work for his Capital City employer.

The homecoming was a successful one for Schmidt and fellow Minnesota-tied Caps players Matt Niskanen, T.J. Oshie and Taylor Chorney as the league’s best team edged the Wild 4-3 behind Alex Ovechkin’s 14th career hat trick.

Although he didn’t register a point in the game, Schmidt came out of the gate with a little extra jump in his step and for good reason.

“You get back to playing in front of friends and family, people that supported you throughout your career so far, I think is great,” Schmidt said as defensive partner John Carlson lobbed tape balls at him over the media surrounding him. “I was just feeling it, I guess.”

Minnesota dropped its seventh in a row and has now lost 12 of its last 13. Schmidt, who is no stranger to many in the Wild dressing room, including former teammates Erik Haula and Mike Reilly, said the home team’s effort was certainly there on Thursday.

“There’s a lot of things going on with them, and it’s tough given their stretch here, but they were flying,” Schmidt said. “I just think that we were pretty relentless in the offensive zone and that’s tough when our guys get going.”

With the win, the Capitals become the first team in the NHL to reach the 40-win plateau and currently have an eight-point lead over Chicago in the chase for the President’s Trophy.

“We have a lot of good character guys off the ice, that really helps us on the ice,” Schmidt said. “We have a team with a lot of skill and when we play fast, play our game, we can play a lot of different styles and it’s kind of helping us move forward and be one of the teams in the league to beat right now.”

Schmidt, in his first full season in Washington after two years bouncing between the AHL’s Hershey Bears and the big club, is both benefiting from and contributing to the Capitals’ rise. Ovechkin, for one, was adamant about one notable quality Schmidt brings to the Caps.

“His energy level is unbelievable,” Ovechkin said. “We just think he’s energy and he gives us energy.”

In 68 NHL games over the past two seasons, Schmidt tallied 10 points on three goals and seven assists and was a plus-2 plus/minus rating. In 48 games this season, Schmidt has already eclipsed that, racking up two goals and 10 assists from the Washington blue line and is a plus-13.

“I think it just comes down to great teammates, great guys in the locker room which really help me out,” Schmidt said. “And then playing with (defensive partner) John Carlson really helps. He’s been kind of the rock back there for a long time on our D and I think that he’s really helped me along.”

Schmidt also pointed to Washington coach Barry Trotz’s role in his development.

“He really highlighted what he wanted from me at the beginning of the year and to be able to follow that path through the first couple weeks of the season, which was a little difficult,” Schmidt said. “But we really kind of got down to it.”

Trotz said Schmidt has taken full advantage of the opportunity presented to him, particularly in his tenure behind the Caps’ bench.

“He’s done a really good job of transforming himself into a National Hockey League player and it started, I think, with the conditioning,” Trotz said. “I think that was a little bit of an issue from what I heard before I got here. He picked that up and it’s not a problem now at all and he’s a dynamic skater.”

Schmidt underwent a similar transformation in college after appearing in just 13 games for Minnesota as a freshman. He patiently bided his time and committed himself in the offseason before a breakout sophomore season. He scored three goals but his 38 assists were good for third overall in the nation as he anchored the blueline for a Gopher team that made it to the Frozen Four in 2012.

He signed with Washington as a free-agent in the spring of 2013 after after a junior season at Minnesota in which he registered 32 points (nine goals, 23 assists) and was named to the All-WCHA First Team and AHCA West Second-Team All-American.  Schmidt helped lead the Gophers to their second consecutive MacNaughton Cup as Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) regular-season champions, topping all WCHA defensemen in scoring along the way.

Schmidt said he signed with the Capitals because of the familiarity he developed with the team and and the good relationships he had with a couple of its scouts after participating in Washington’s summer developmental camp.

“They said, ’Hey, if you continue to progress, and there’s nothing guaranteed in this game, this is where we project you to be in a couple years,’” Schmidt said. “Lo and behold, they were right.”

The beneficiary of that accurate forecast is Trotz, who notes Schmidt is a favorite among his teammates.

“He brings an enormous amount of energy which I think is contagious,” Trotz said. “He always has a smile on his face. He can talk a million miles an hour but he enjoys what he does and I think that’s contagious.”

With the Capitals seemingly running away from the field, Schmidt was asked if the team’s motivation might slip at some point as the regular season drags on. But Schmidt said the team’s competitive nature won’t allow it.

“You want to see how high you can get,” Schmidt said. I think that’s what it really comes down to. What heights can you reach as a team? And just try and get there and try and surpass it. There really isn’t an end goal, I guess, in the regular season, there’s only one at the end of the year.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story listed Lake Elmo as the site of the Schmidt family gathering rather than Lake Calhoun.

The post The Energizer appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Minnesota drops another at home as Ovechkin scores twice

St. Paul — The Minnesota Wild have recently made an art of falling behind in games only to stage dramatic rallies late to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, including a recent 2-1 road win over the Washington Capitals.

It stands to reason, though, the practice would eventually catch up with the Wild and it did when the Capitals dropped by for a visit on Thursday night.

Goals by Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov 39 seconds apart in a late second-period 4-on-4 situation put the Caps up 2-0 helping to lift Washington to a 3-2 win over Minnesota in front of 19,044 at Xcel Energy Center.

Caps’ goaltender Braden Holtby made 28 saves and Ovechkin scored twice — his league-leading 46th and 47th goals of the season — to lead Washington to its first-ever regulation win in St. Paul (1-7-1). The Florida Panthers now stand as the lone NHL team without a regulation victory at Xcel Energy Center.

“I think we did a really good job [on Ovechkin] for most of the night,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “But certainly that 4-on-4 was a key moment in the hockey game. We’re 0-0, I felt we were going pretty good, the next thing you know you’re down in a 2-0 hole, it changes the game.”

Ovechkin’s right circle blast directly off of a Nicklas Backstrom faceoff win at 3:05 of the third period gave the Capitals a 3-1 lead and ultimately proved to be the difference.

“His shot’s lethal,” Wild forward Chris Stewart said. “He probably has one of the best releases in the league so anytime you lose that faceoff clean there, in a split second it’s already in the back of the net.”

Defensemen Christian Folin and Jared Spurgeon scored for Minnesota while goaltender Devan Dubnyk lost just his sixth game in 29 starts in the Wild crease.

Winners of a franchise-record eight straight games on the road, the Wild have now lost four of their last six at home with the silver lining being they’ve all been decided by a single goal.

“I find that in a lot of these games we’re making one big mistake or there’s a couple breakdowns that we’re making that we haven’t been making on the road lately,” Yeo said. “I look back at our last two losses and we only have one 5-on-5 goal in our last two games so that, to me, is probably the big reason why we’re winless in our last two here.”

In a matchup of the NHL’s best penalty kill against the league’s top power play, the Wild prevailed in keeping Washington scoreless in four power-play opportunities. Minnesota has now killed off 64 of its opponents’ last 67 chances (95.5 percent) with the man advantage in its last 25 games.

Ovechkin broke open a scoreless stalemate through most of two periods with his league-leading  46th goal of the season at the 15:25 mark. With the teams skating 4-on-4, Ovechkin’s shot from the top of the left circle was stopped by Dubnyk but the speedy Russian followed his shot and beat Wild defenseman Ryan Suter to his own rebound for a 1-0 Caps lead.

Shortly thereafter, Kuzentsov doubled the Washington lead when he picked the pocket of Minnesota defenseman Jonas Brodin in the low slot and faked to his backhand before wrapping a forehand shot around a sprawling Dubnyk at 16:04.

“They capitalized on one of the few little hiccups we had tonight and all of a sudden it’s a 2-0 game as opposed to 0-0 and it just kind of changed the complexion of everything,” Minnesota assistant captain Zach Parise said.

The two goals in short order came a game after Nashville’s Roman Josi scored twice in 45 seconds to give the Predators a second period lead.

“Those are always key shifts [after goals] and you look at the game that we won in St. Louis and we were on the other side of it,” Yeo said. “You have to be able to brush that stuff off and you have to be able to come back out the next shift and be ready to do the job.”

With time winding down in the waning seconds of the middle frame, Folin saw an opportunity to join the rush with Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund and made the most of it. Folin’s received Granlund’s pass in stride below the dots and snapped shot between Holtby’s legs with 8.2 seconds remaining to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Spurgeon netted his ninth of the season on the power play with 5:56 remaining and Minnesota made a strong push for the tying goal in the final minutes but Holtby and the Capitals survived this time.

“Tonight we weren’t that far off,” Yeo said. “The game could have taken a much different turn many times along the game and it was a close game, but we’ll just look to bounce back in the next one.”

The next one comes Saturday in a 1 p.m. matinee affair at Xcel Energy Center against David Backes, TJ Oshie and the crew from St. Louis.

Schmidt’s return triumphant

Nearly two years to the day since his last Xcel Energy Center appearance, former Gopher Nate Schmidt spread out 11:19 of ice time over 17 shifts, fired one shot on goal and blocked one for the Capitals in his first game in St. Paul as a pro.

Schmidt, a St. Cloud native who registered 72 points (12g, 62a) in 96 games with Minnesota from 2012-13, last played on Xcel Energy Center ice on March 22, 2013 in the Gophers’ 2-0 loss to Colorado College in the semifinals of the WCHA Final Five.

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