POSTGAME NOTEBOOK - Caps 4, Isles 3 (SO)

The Third Man - We all knew the moment was coming sooner rather than later, but it finally happened with just under five minutes remaining in the Caps' Tuesday night tilt with the New York Islanders at Capital One Arena.

On a set play off an offensive-zone face-off after Evgeny Kuznetsov won the draw, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin fired a shot past Isles goalie - and former Washington teammate - Semyon Varlamov. A week after he tied Jaromir Jagr (766) for third place on the NHL's all-time goals list in Calgary, Ovechkin pushed past the Czech winger, netting goal No. 767 of his NHL career, and lifting the Caps into a 3-2 lead in the game, a game they would later win by a 4-3 count in an eight-round shootout.
"It was awesome," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "It was a big goal at the time. They're all big, but that was a big one at the time, and a meaningful goal. And then to come back and put a win on the end of it, which makes it an even better night where you get a chance to enjoy it and take a second. It's just a good ending to a good night."
Ovechkin's first goal came here in Washington on Oct. 5, 2005, and he has hardly paused for a breath since. Sixteen and a half years after notching his first NHL goal, he now stands alone atop the list of European-born NHL players, and he is now looking up at only two players on the League's all-time red-light ledger: Wayne Gretzky (894) and Gordie Howe (801).
Jagr held the top spot on the European-born goals list for more than 15 years.
"I think it's pretty cool and pretty crazy on both sides, what he's done in his career," says longtime teammate Dmitry Orlov of Ovechkin. "It's fun to watch. He still shows his skill, and every year he shows up. He is the captain, and he still does a great job. I hope he's going to keep going because he means a lot for this team, and everybody follows him. He is good as a person and as a leader."
With a two-goal game on Nov. 21, 2006, Jagr netted goals 601 and 602 of his NHL career, passing Jari Kurri (601) to move into the top spot among European-born players. At that time, Ovechkin was early in his second season in the NHL, and he had 65 goals in his first 101 games.
With 767 career goals at this very moment, we thought we would isolate what is currently the "middle goal" of Ovechkin's NHL career. That would be goal No. 384; there were 383 goals before it and another 383 goals after it. Goal No. 384 came on the power play in a Nov. 7, 2013 game against the Minnesota Wild in D.C., and it came in the 615th game of his NHL career.
That means Ovechkin scored his first 383 goals in 614 games and he has scored his last 383 goals in 641 games, which isn't much of a drop-off in red-light production. At the age of 36, he is on pace to score 50 goals this season, which would make him the first player in NHL history to score as many as 50 goals in a season at age 36 or older.
Ovechkin has scored against 154 different goaltenders - including 83 of them in the first ever head-to-head meeting against the Washington winger - and with assists from 104 different teammates.
Ovechkin's longest dry spell ever between goals was a 10-game gap from Feb. 22-March 17, 2017. Among the NHL's top 10 goal scorers of all time, Ovechkin's 10-game drought is the shortest. The next closest is a 13-game dry spell for ex-Caps winger Mike Gartner, late in his career, spanning the 1996-97 and ''97-98 seasons.
Ovechkin is the only player in NHL history to play in 1,000 or more games in the league without experiencing a goal drought of more than 10 games.
Only eight players who were active in the League when Ovechkin scored his first NHL goal are still active: Craig Anderson, Patrice Bergeron, Brent Burns, Dustin Brown, Zdeno Chara, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jason Spezza and Joe Thornton. Anderson and Chara were Ovechkin's teammates in Washington last season, and Chara was in the building - and playing in the game as a member of the Islanders - when Ovechkin passed Jagr.
Only three goaltenders have played in as many five games while shutting down Ovechkin: Mike Condon, Mathieu Garon and Tristan Jarry. Jarry is the only one still active among the trio, and all three have played seven games against the Caps without yielding a goal to Ovechkin.
After catching up with Jagr's total a week ago in Calgary, Ovechkin went without a goal in Edmonton and Vancouver, despite pouring 14 shots on opposing nets in those two games. That gave him a chance to pass Jagr in front of the home crowd on Tuesday, in Washington's only home game in a span of 15 days. The Caps are currently in the midst of a stretch in which they play five of six games on the road, and Ovechkin's big moment came late in that one home game.
"I have pressure from Kuzy," quips Ovechkin. "Empty nets, breakaways; it's hard to play with that kind of center man, when you have pressure all the time. He wants to be in history, and right now he is."
Ovechkin then patted Kuznetsov on the back.
"Yeah, I got in the picture, finally," says Kuznetsov. "It took seven years."
Number One - Ovechkin's goal gave Washington a brief 3-2 lead late in the third, but midway through the middle frame, Caps winger Axel Jonsson-Fjallby netted the first goal of his NHL career, converting a sweet Dmitry Orlov feed on a 2-on-1 rush after Orlov deftly skirted a pair of New York defenders to create the odd-man opportunity.
After the game, Jonsson-Fjallby and Orlov were seated in the media room to field questions from the media. But as Orlov was answering the first of those questions, the door opened and Tom Wilson entered with a towel full of shaving cream, which he applied liberally to Jonsson-Fjallby's face.
"Congrats, brother," said Wilson, leaving as quickly as he had entered.
Years ago, it was Jeff Halpern who administered Ovechkin's shaving cream baptism, following his first career goal against Columbus here more than 16 years ago. Ovechkin himself gave Nicklas Backstrom the shaving cream treatment in Philadelphia on the young center's 20th birthday, following Backstrom's overtime game-winner against the Flyers that afternoon, the second goal of his NHL career.
In recent years, Wilson has taken on the shaving cream chores in the District.
Jonsson-Fjallby wiped away the shaving cream with his sweatshirt and hung in gamely, and he even tossed out an early quip when asked about trailing Ovechkin by 766 goals.
"I'm going to beat him, probably," says Jonsson-Fjallby.
Washington's fifth-round pick (147th overall) in the 2016 NHL Draft, Jonsson-Fjallby made his NHL debut in November and scored his first goal in his 14th NHL game. He has played in each of Washington's last five games, with a goal and an assist during that span.
Seen Your Video - There were a pair of coach's challenge video reviews in Tuesday's game, and both of them went against Washington. First, the Caps issued a challenge on Brock Nelson's goal at 4:55 of the second, the Islanders' first of the night.
Washington claimed that Anders Lee's stick jab at goaltender Vitek Vanecek prevented him from being able to reset and make the save on Nelson, but officials didn't see it the same way. Washington was assessed a delay of game minor, and it resulted in the only power play of the game for either side.
Later in the second period, Justin Schultz appeared to have scored for Washington - a goal that would have restored the Caps' lead at 2-1 - but the Isles challenged, claiming the Caps were offside on the play. A brief video review confirmed as much, and the score remained at 1-1 with some time added back onto the game clock.
All Of This And Nothing - Vanecek entered Tuesday's game with two straight shutouts against the Islanders, and with a shutout string of 126 minutes and 55 seconds against New York. Vanecek stretched that whitewash run into the early minutes of the second period before he was finally beat on the Nelson goal referenced above.
Nelson's goal halted Vanecek's shutout streak against the Islanders at 151 minutes and 50 seconds. With his shootout win over the Isles on Tuesday, Vanecek improves to 5-1-0 with a 1.74 GAA and a .941 save pct. in seven career appearances against New York.
Let It Roll - With Tuesday's win, Washington has won three straight home games, and is now 5-0-1 in its last six games. The six-game point streak is the Caps' longest since a seven-game run from Nov. 8-20 when they went 6-0-1. Washington opened the season with points in each of its first eight games (5-0-3), its longest streak of the season to date.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Capitals with 23:05 in ice time … Ovechkin led the Caps with seven shots on net and nine shot attempts, and he also led the team with six hits … Martin Fehervary led Washington with three blocked shots … Nic Dowd won six of 10 draws (60 percent).