WASHINGTON – Connor McMichael struck twice, Alex Ovechkin scored his 859th career goal and two assists and the Washington Capitals continued their dominant start to the season with a 7-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.

McMichael and Ovechkin both scored goals in three straight games for Washington, which is 8-2 this season.

Ovechkin is 36 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's scoring record. He is currently on track to finish with 49 goals, which would put him at 895 goals later this season.

Both Ovechkin and McMichael helped jumpstart Washington's offense as the team scored five goals in the first half and all four lines got on the scoresheet. Damon Severson and Kevin Labanc scored for the Blue Jackets, who lost consecutive games.

Logan Thompson made 34 saves and is undefeated in his Capitals tenure. Daniil Tarasov stopped 15 of 22 shots for Columbus.

Takeaways

Blue Jackets: Columbus outran Washington, but the defense struggled in front of Tarasov as the team gave up six goals for the second straight game. The Blue Jackets have been outscored 12-4 in this back-to-back series.

Capitals: The offense continues to come easy for the up-and-coming Caps, which wasn't the case last season. They have scored at least five goals in five of their last seven games.

Key moment

Aliaksei Protas opened the scoring just 56 seconds into a 2-on-0 break, while Dylan Strome, who also scored three points on the night, scored his third goal in as many games.

Key statistics

Ovechkin is up to six goals in 10 games to start the 2024-25 season. It took him 30 games to reach that number last year, and he did so against the Blue Jackets.

Next

The Capitals visit the Hurricanes on Sunday and the Blue Jackets head west to face the Sharks on Tuesday.

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