Capitals search for offense outside Ovechkin

Alex Ovechkin’s 600th career goal Tuesday night was not only another milestone for the Capitals superstar, it was an exclamation point on the type of throwback season the 32-year-old is having.

Ovechkin — who is responsible for more of his team’s offense than any player in the league — has 42 goals on the season and is in the running for the Hart Trophy, the NHL’s most valuable player honor.

The Capitals will hold a ceremony to honor Ovechkin’s 600th before Friday’s game against the New York Islanders.

Ovechkin is providing 20.3 percent of his team’s scoring this season — no other player in the league tops 17 percent.

The Capitals are fortunate to have Ovechkin, especially considering the offense has dried up around him in recent weeks.

Since the All-Star break, the Capitals rank 19th in total goals scored. They entered the break with the 11th most goals scored.

With the Capitals defense also struggling, it’s been harder to win games.

Coach Barry Trotz said a scoring drought can feed on itself.

“When you go dry, there’s a couple of things,” Trotz said. “You’re trying to get too fine and missing the net. I think we’ve missed the net too often. You start hanging onto the puck that extra second … the extra second probably means three feet in our business. And so those windows close down on you.”

To get Ovechkin some help on offense, Trotz has been tinkering with his lines.

The Capitals coach briefly tried pairing Brett Connolly, who has one goal in his last 20 games, with Nicklas Backstrom on the second line. He also didn’t wait long to pull T.J. Oshie off the third line with Lars Eller and Andre Burakovsky.

Oshie’s season is particularly mystifying after he scored a career-high 33 goals last season. He parlayed his contract year into a massive eight-year, $46 million deal in the summer.

This season, Oshie has just four even-strength goals. He had 25 last season.

Like Connolly, he has just one goal in his last 20 games.

“At times, it’s because of poor play,” Oshie said of the scoring struggle. “A lot of instances this year seems like there’s been bad luck. But it just comes down to sticking with it. Keep going to scoring areas, get to the front of the net. All the pucks end up there eventually, anyway. I’ll continue to look to doing that.”

The Capitals have gotten valuable contributions from Backstrom and center Evgeny Kuznetsov.

After the Capitals’ win against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, Kuznetsov marveled at Ovechkin’s 600 goals and joked he couldn’t even score 20 in a season. But the Russian was selling himself short. He already has 21 goals through 69 games. Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan has said he would like to see Kuznetsov become a 25-goal scorer on a regular basis.

Playing alongside someone like Ovechkin should put that goal within reach.

With 13 games left, Ovechkin has a chance to hit his season-long target of 50 goals.

“I have a lot of confidence in the group that we have,” Trotz said. “They’ve been doing that for a long time, and they’ll start feeling it again. We’ll be fine.”