Islanders 4, Capitals 1: Gatcomb makes history with first 2-goal game

1 week ago  /  Lighthouse Hockey

The King of the RBK Edge fashion era salutes worthy opponent Marc Gatcomb on his big day. | Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images


Also: There was some kind of mid-game and post-game fuss about Alex Ovechkin? Marc Gatcomb reached a milestone by scoring two goals in a game for the first time in his young career as the New York Islanders defeated the Washington Capitals 4-1 on an otherwise uneventful afternoon on Long Island.
The Isles pick up another pair of what are almost certainly too-little, too-late points in their longshot wild card chase, while the Capitals failed to clinch a Metropolitan Division title that will inevitably be theirs in a few more days anyway.
Oh, crap, wait, there was one other thing: You probably didn’t hear anything about this ahead of time, but Alex Ovechkin scored the lone Capitals goal, on a power play and from his office but not on his patented one-timer, to pass Wayne Gretzky and claim the NHL all-time regular season goals (895) record. Countryman Ilya Sorokin goes down as the official victim.
[NHL Gamecenter | Game Summary | Event Summary | Natural Stat Trick]
In an event that was hyped all season, it was kind of fitting that it happened in an afternoon game that probably means nothing in the standings, so the NHL could interrupt proceedings with pomp and salute and circumstance without threatening the “integrity” of the competition and all that. The Isles were up 2-0 when Ovechkin scored to make it 2-1, but the Isles reclaimed that two-goal lead within three minutes and added another in the third for the 4-1 final.
So cheers to Gatcomb for being able to brag to his grandkids that yeah, he was not only there for Ovechkin’s record...he outscored him. Indeed, with the crowd still abuzz or else relieved by watching history — many Caps fans and “I was there” chasers in the audience plunked down $600-1,000+ in hopes of seeing it — Gatcomb scored to turn attention back to the game. His goal set off the horn as the national broadcast was still talking about the “unbelievable excitement and appreciation...”


The Marc Gatcomb game pic.twitter.com/CW9Dt2iXRG— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) April 6, 2025




And if the Islanders can pull off a miracle, who knows? Gatcomb could even say it meant something to the Islanders season. (Heh.) No but really, the Islanders remain five points behind the Canadiens, who hold the wild card and play pushover Nashville later in the evening.
So surely not — and many fans will be mad at the Isles for again finishing in the blah middle in a season when they’ve actually held on to their first-round pick and would have little chance against a top-seed opponent. (Ignore for the moment that they just defeated that top seed; this game wasn’t about that.)
Anyway, here’s the moment, one the Isles will be relieved to at least obscure with a W and the Capitals will be relieved to be able to celebrate with a few games to spare in the regular season:



Sorokin said Ovi asked for his stick when he skated over to the crease after ceremony. Sorokin not asking for anything in return.— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) April 6, 2025






Sorokin said he never saw Ovechkin’s shot through traffic. He said Ovechkin usually shoots glove side so he was a little surprised Ovi went other way with the shot.— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) April 6, 2025






What an embrace between Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Sorokin. Forever linked pic.twitter.com/EK8WNtYCGr— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 6, 2025






Apparently Ovi asked Ilya Sorokin for his stick after scoring his record breaking goal, and Ilya has obliged pic.twitter.com/2IwrktVHEb— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) April 6, 2025




So 895 (and counting) will be the number hyped as the new and unattainable threshold, though of course Ovechkin should sail well past 900 before he’s done — and frankly, that number sells him short. I get on this soapbox all the time for Mike Bossy, so I’ll get on it for Ovechkin: In a league that pretends the grueling regular season’s President’s Trophy is an afterthought but the playoffs mean everything, it will forever boggle my mind that they focus on regular season-only career records. Ovechkin has 72 playoff goals in his career, which means with 967 thus far, he has a decent chance at accumulating 1,000 total NHL + regular season goals — a particularly sexy number in our base-10 system!
To apply this lens to the other greatest pure goal scorer of my lifetime: Bossy had 573 regular season goals (in a little over half as many games as Ovechkin has played thus far), and added 85(!) playoff goals for a total of 658 in his NHL non-preseason career — it’s that combined number that always will always awe me and make me mourn that his career ended at age 30.
Gretzky, by the way, had 122 NHL playoff goals, so he finished 1,016 regular season + playoff goals. So maybe they resume the “GR8” hype chase when Ovechkin nears 1,000 or even 1,016.
Anyway, that’s that for now. The record is eclipsed, the hype can settle back down, the playoffs are imminent for half the league.
Up Next
The Islanders hit the road to visit Nashville on Tuesday. With six games to go and today’s result, they are flirting seriously with not even having a top-10 pick in the draft....

Read Full Article.