Photo credit: khl.ru

When Alex Ovechkin signed with Dynamo Moscow in September, many expected the Russian machine to dominate, putting up points like Wayne Gretzky did during his 215-point 1985-86 season. Instead, Ovi has merely been a point per game player in the KHL, while his Capitals teammate Nicklas Backstrom has put up the gaudy numbers.

On Saturday, Ovi had his first humongous big game in the KHL. Ovi registered a hat trick — his first three-goal game since the Capitals’ 4-1 win against Toronto on January 22, 2011 — and scored his 100th career point in the Russian major leagues – Superleague and KHL, during Dynamo’s 4-2 win against Donbass Donetsk.

Now let’s see this hatty!

On Ovi’s first goal, after firing a one-timer, he potted his own rebound on the backhand. To score his second goal of the game, Ovi one-timed a shot on the powerplay. His tallies, both assisted by Leo Komarov, gave his team a 2-0 lead late in the first. With just one minute to go in the period, Dynamo’s Janne Jalasvaara scored a shorthanded goal to put Muscovites up by three.

Donbass, however, never quit, as Tuomas Kiiskinen and former Panther Evgeni Dadonov scored a goal each and gave their team some hope in the third period. The blue thirty-two though, sealed the game with his hat trick goal, an empty-netter assisted by Nicklas Backstrom.

With the points, Ovechkin extended his KHL points streak to eight games (6 goals and 7 assists). His three goals also bumped him up into KHL’s Top-10 in points (surpassing Evgeny Kuznetsov and Pavel Datsyuk) and the Top-15 in goals (tying Ilya Kovalchuk).

Backstrom — a game after ending his own 7-game point streak — recorded an assist, tied Ovechkin for the game-high in shots (4), and won 13 of 22 face-offs in 19:41 of ice time.

Way to go, Ovi!

Graphic created by dynamo.ru

Additional reporting by Fedor Fedin.