A hundred seconds later, Ovechkin notched No. 51 with a patented one-time drive from his left dot office, extending the Caps' bulge to 6-2.
Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov scored on a Lightning power play in the game's final minute to account for the 6-3 final.
With Ovechkin, Backstrom and Oshie all having an opportunity for the hat trick, Reirden was in the enviable position of putting three forwards with two goals each out on the ice against the best team in the league, with each of the three having a chance for a hat trick. Ovechkin unselfishly fed Oshie, whose redirect bid hit the right goal post.
"I kind of looked at Nick and I was like, 'Two hat tricks tonight?,' recounts Oshie. "And then the next thing you know, [Ovechkin] has two and then we just looked at each other like, 'Maybe we'll just let him get the hat trick.' So it was pretty crazy. And pretty unselfish of [Ovechkin] out there obviously looking for me out there on that one little 2-on-1 break we had there off the post.
"It's always fun scoring goals, and the big man scores a lot of goals."
Indeed he does. That's 658, and counting.