Ovechkin trucked Mike Richards with a hit of the night

Ovechkin with a big hit on Mike Richards

Tarik El-Bashir: "Ovechkin took back the lead in goals by scoring his 10th and 11th. He also had the hit of the night. He trucked Mike Richards early in the second period along the boards. The collision was so hard, Ovechkin's stick was sent flying."











Mike Richards flying like a rag doll...

Mike Richards post-game: "Sometimes You're The Windshield, Sometimes You're The Bug" (ok, he didn't say that, just kidding)

While Ovi was trying to pick up a stick, Scott Hartnell intentionally fell on top of Ovi. This made Ovi mad, and when he is mad, he'll bury you.


Ovi's post game interview in a locker room, Oct. 27, 2009

Ovechkin on a hit: "It was just a game moment, I didn't see who was over there, Richards or Hartnell... I think Hartnell tried to grab my stick and puck, he was trying to jump on my back, it's ok (smiling)"



Sportsnet.ca has a much better angle (Ovechkin's big hit on Mike Richards seemed to spark Capitals), if someone will post it on YouTube, we'll update it.

Dan Rosen, Oct. 27, 2009, NHL.COM:

WASHINGTON -- Alex Ovechkin called his second-period goal "lucky." The Capitals' superstar also said his mini-skirmish by the penalty boxes with Mike Richards and Scott Hartnell earlier in the period was "just a game moment."

He clearly didn't want to take too much credit away from the sterling performance put in by goalie Jose Theodore (41 saves) on Tuesday night or the solid effort from linemates Alexander Semin (thre points) and Nicklas Backstrom (four points), but when the Capitals needed a lift, wouldn't you know, No. 8 was there to give it to them.

It was Ovechkin's physical play on Richards and eventually Hartnell that seemed to jump-start the Caps. Even though they failed to score on a 5-on-3 shortly after and then gave up a power-play goal to Braydon Coburn, they seemed energized after the hitting.

"I kind of saw that it got everybody going," Theodore said, "and it just seemed that we had that extra effort after that and we wanted to win so bad."

Added Ovechkin: "We had an opportunity to beat them because after 2-0 we didn't give up and we pushed harder to win the game."

As usual, No. 8 got it started, but he won't tell you that.

"Everybody wake up when they score the second goal," Ovechkin said. "We dig deep."

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