Why Wilson wishes he had scored 1 goal vs. Buffalo instead of 2 originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Tom Wilson was happy about his two-goal game on Monday ... mostly. While Wilson managed to rack up the assists early on in the season, recording seven in his first six games, the goals have been hard to come by. Wilson finally broke through on Nov. 4 against the Florida Panthers for his first goal of the season and tallied two more on Monday in a win over the Buffalo Sabres.
You would expect Wilson to be all smiles, and he was, but there was a part of him that wishes he had just "got out of the way."
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Alex Ovechkin entered Monday's game just one goal shy of Brett Hull for fourth on the all-time goals list. Less than three minutes in, Capital One Arena erupted as Ovechkin clearly deflected a shot from Trevor van Riemsdyk that managed to get past goalie Dustin Tokarski. It would have been a historic goal, but there was just one problem. Ovechkin's deflection then hit off of Wilson's elbow and in so it was his goal and not Ovechkin's.
Ovechkin would go on to score in the second period, but instead of passing Hull, Ovechkin finished the night tied with him at 741 goals.
“If it wasn’t for me, he would have passed Hull," Wilson said. "He tipped it off my arm or something. I should have just got out of the way and we would have been talking about Jagr."
Jaromir Jagr is the next player on the goals list with 766.
The Caps are already without Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and Anthony Mantha, plus Nic Dowd left Monday's game with an injury. Washington's top line has been carrying the team offensively and that continued on Monday. Ovechkin, Kuznetsov and Wilson scored three of the team's five goals with Wilson's second goal proving to be the game-winner.
With the injuries mounting, Washington needs as many players hitting the back of the net as possible. Getting Wilson hot is a definite plus for the Caps even if, on Monday, he would have preferred Ovechkin get the first goal.
"It’s a lot of fun playing with these guys and whatever I can do to compete and play my game," Wilson said, "And most important thing right now is team wins. We have some adversity going but we are rallying together and trying to keep collecting the Ws.”
