📸: Ian Hopper

The two best teams in the league, if you believe biased sources like the standings, met on Tuesday as the Washington Capitals visited the Winnipeg Jets.

Seven minutes in, Josh Morrissey put the Jets up with one-timer off Mark Scheifele’s setup. Andrew Mangiapane scored on the rush in the waning seconds to tie it 1-1 after one.

The Caps looked steady in the second period, but the only goal of the frame belonged to the Jets: Mason Appleton going top shelf after a power play expired.

With four minutes left in the third period, Alex Ovechkin tied the game with his 889th goal. That brought us to overtime, where Nik Ehlers won it on the rush.

Caps lose.

• The Winnipeg Jets are a great team, and the Caps looked greater than them for 45 of the first 60 minutes. But Winnipeg’s biggest strength is their goaltending – namely Connor Hellebuyck, whose name I spelled right on the first try. Against him the Caps had a rare night of non-legendary finishing, and that alone would have been the difference-maker if not for another legend.
• Alex Ovechkin now has just six goals left before he becomes – officially – the greatest goal-scorer of all time. He was set up by Aliaksei Protas, who sent from the boards a praiseworthy pass just so Ovi could do something nasty with it.
• Much like John Carlson, I try not to be a goalie defender here. But I have to stick up for Logan Thompson, who didn’t even see Morrissey’s goal, and who was never going to stop that far-post shot by tertiary Mark Twain character Mason Appleton. The OTGWG from Ehlers was blazing fast.
• In the 23andme out-of-town scoreboard, it was a night of blowouts in the Eastern Conferenec. The Bolts beat the Pens 6-1, and the Leafs beat the Flyers 7-2. The latter prompted a classic “look at me; don’t look at my bad team” quote from John Tortorella. He does this move all the time – partly because his teams are often quite bad.

• Colin Miller hit Andrew Mangiapane in the numbers and into the boards. That would have given the Caps a power play, but Mangiapane lost his temper, retaliating with a cross-check. I’d gripe more, but scored as soon as he exited the penalty box, a sort of fadeaway assisted brilliantly by Jakub Chychrun.
• Better with his temper – perhaps too good? – was 31-goal-scorer Tom Wilson. Luke Schenn got testy with Wilson, and that could have been a two-fer (justifiable aggression and bonus because it’s against a Schenn). Wilson has fought Luke three times and his brother Brayden once, but this time Wilson opted for the better part of valor. Boring.
• Just occurred to me that the loser point could end up being the difference between the Caps winning the President’s Trophy and winning just the Eastern Conference. That’d be tragic, you guys.

Great game, all things considered.

Another 8 PM start on Thursday, against another team that depends desperately on their goaltending: the Minnesota Wild. This game and that one are good tests for a team gearing up for the playoffs. And then the Sabres game this weekend will be some other kind of test. I don’t know what.