BUFFALO, N.Y. — Washington's Alex Ovechkin has the chance to make history Monday night in Buffalo. The Capitals' captain is a goal shy of tying Phil Esposito for sixth in NHL history, at 717 goals.
"I really enjoy playing against him and I feel like he enjoys it too," Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen said. "Play hard and clean, and we both like to hit each other and get hit. That fires up me and gets me in the game. I always look forward to playing against him."
Ovechkin has a goal in three of his last four games ahead of the Capitals matchup with the Sabres. He's tallied three assists over five games against Buffalo so far.
"He’s an example for any young player because when you’re not scoring you’re making other things happen, and that’s Ovechkin," Sabres coach Ralph Krueger said.
"When his chances comes, and they always come here and there, he is as aggressive on those chances as if it’s his last opportunity every time, and what an example of finishing. Not only does he have the skill, but he has the grit that goes with it all the time. We can learn form that."
The Sabres, on a ten-game losing streak and coming off of a 3-0, loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, could take a page out of Ovechkin's book.
"I really enjoy challenges as a leader, but this one of the toughest that I’ve seen where we feel like we have a group that’s extremely engaged and we come into a game day... with a good spirit in the morning... and somehow we’re just not able to push it over the line offensively, the creation of scoring chances seems to be limited," Krueger said after Saturday's loss.
Carter Hutton stopped 31 of 32 shots in the loss to Pittsburgh and was the first goalie off the ice during Monday's morning skate, according to our NHL contributor Paul Hamilton.
After Saturday's loss, Hutton said, "I just think we need to work harder and make it harder on goalies... Sometimes you’ve got to just dumb your game down and keep it simple and just outwork teams. That’ll kind of get you out of the rut. It doesn’t always have to be pretty. I don’t know how we get there.
"We just got to keep chipping away here. We’re professional athletes here and no one’s going to feel sorry for us. We’ve got to figure this out ourselves."
