WASHINGTON -- At a time when the game's deep thinkers and even the shallow thinkers ponder how to get more pucks into more nets, it is nice for a change to pause and celebrate the most gifted goal scorer of our generation.
From the moment the puck dropped Sunday night at the sold-out Verizon Center, there was a crackle of anticipation. The players felt it too -- even if Alex Ovechkin suggested he did not -- that this would be the night, that it was just a matter of time before Ovechkin scored the 500th goal of his career.