BUFFALO – Having spent parts of four seasons as Alex Ovechkin’s teammate, Sabres winger Beck Malenstyn is hardly surprised the superstar rejected a chance to break the all-time goals record Friday after the Chicago Blackhawks pulled their goalie.
During their days together on the Washington Capitals, Malenstyn said when the Russian approached milestones, he wasn’t too interested in scoring empty-net goals.
“There were instances last year where unless it was a clear-cut look at an empty net, it’s not really how he wanted to do it when he approached … moving into third, moving into second,” Malenstyn told the Time Herald prior to Saturday’s 3-2 shootout win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at KeyBank Center. “He didn’t want it to be in those kind of scenarios, which, I mean, you kind of look at it from both sides. A goal’s a goal; it doesn’t matter how you do it. It’s so hard to score in this league.”
After scoring his 893rd and 894th goals and tying Wayne Gretzky’s all-time mark in Friday’s 5-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks, Ovechkin told his coach, Spencer Carbery, to put someone else on the ice late in the game.
“I tell Carbs right away, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” Ovechkin told reporters in Washington following the game.
Malenstyn said he respects “the way that he wants to do it on his own terms.”
“He wants a goalie in the net,” he said. “He really wants to earn it. So it’s pretty incredible.”
Ovechkin, 39, gets his next chance to break the hallowed record on the road Sunday afternoon against the New York Islanders.
Last season, when Ovechkin scored just eight times in his first 43 games, it looked like he had possibly hit a wall after nearly two decades of remarkable consistency and production.
He ended up scoring 31 times in 79 games in his 19th season, the 18th time he surpassed the 30-goal mark.
“He was making plays that just weren’t ending up in the net, he was hitting every post imaginable,” Malenstyn said of Ovechkin’s play early in 2023-24. “And from a statistical standpoint, sure, he was probably a little bit behind the pace that you’d be accustomed to seeing from him. But he came out in the back half of the season and scored 30. It was truly incredible.”
Ovechkin’s torrid goal-scoring run helped Malenstyn realize how much the winger has evolved over his decorated career.
“He’s really reinvented himself to find out different ways to score, too,” he said. “You see him tipping pucks, rebounds around the net, still can score from his office (the circle). He really does it all.”
Ovechkin might already own the record if Malenstyn hadn’t blocked one of his lethal shots in last Sunday afternoon’s 8-5 road win over the Capitals.
“It caught me in a pretty good spot,” Malenstyn said. “I mean, a little bit of a stinger, but nothing too, too bad. Kind of just edge of the shin pad.”
The rugged Malenstyn, who has registered 53 blocks and 182 hits this season, the highest total among Buffalo’s forwards, said he takes prides in putting his body in front of pucks.
“It’s something that I’ve always … been willing to do,” he said. “I had a coach one time tell me he knew I was off my game because I wasn’t blocking them. And I was like, ‘Oh boy, if this is the standard I have to reach.’”
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said Malenstyn’s “willingness to sell out in key situations” and the passion he exhibits for his role as a fourth-liner and penalty killer has grabbed his attention.
Ruff has recently been putting Malenstyn’s line out for the opening faceoff.
“They’re getting in on the forecheck, they’re creating momentum right off the bat for us,” he said. “His physicality, getting in on the defense, making them make a hurried play has been really good.”