If you ask a hockey fan to close their eyes and imagine an Alex Ovechkin goal, almost every one of them will picture the same thing.

Left faceoff circle. Power play. One timer. The puck travels so fast it’s barely visible. The goalie looks so lost he doesn’t know what continent he’s on.

View photos The Alex Ovechkin one-timer is the oldest trick in the book but it still works (Getty/Ciaran Breen) More

You don’t have to watch Washington Capitals hockey regularly to have seen it again and again. It’s the most iconic shot in the NHL. Ovechkin has been doing it for 14 years at the highest level with no sign of slowing up.

Two weeks ago, against the New York Rangers, the seven-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner, scored a pair exactly that way. One was more of a knuckle puck than the other, but otherwise they were more or less identical:

View photos Via NHL Live More

View photos Via NHL More

Ovechkin camps out near the back edge of the faceoff circle, waits for a feed from John Carlson, and blasts the puck through the opposing goaltender. Classic.

The 33-year-old has scored 233 power-play goals to date, most of them looking more or less like that. That isn’t just the most anyone else has managed since 2005-06, it’s 98 more than second-best (a spot on the leaderboard somehow occupied by Thomas Vanek). He’s led the league in power-play tallies six times, including every season in a five-year run from 2012-13 to 2016-17. Since he came into the league, the Capitals have an NHL-best 20.6 success rate with the man advantage. This year, their 37.2 percent is tops by 4.8 percent.

The whole run is based on something that would seem so predictable that there should be a way to slow it down, if not scheme it out of existence. Everyone knows what the Capitals power play is trying to do, so why can’t they put a stop to it?

In order to answer that question I watched every minute of every Capitals power play this season to see how a man as dangerous as Ovechkin manages to get so open, so often. Here are a few of the takeaways:

Ovechkin is deadly from farther out than almost anyone

Against a power play that is executing, it’s almost impossible to prevent shots from being taken. Instead, the goal of a good penalty kill is to cut down high-danger shots. That usually means closing down the slot and trying to force opponents to let it rip from far enough away that they’re unlikely to score.

The problem with Ovechkin is that his shot is so powerful that the “high-danger” area extends a lot further from the net than it does for most players. That leaves defenders with a choice of breaking their formation and following him out to his spot — leaving a passing lane to slot man T.J. Oshie open — or staying close to the net, keeping their box tight, and letting Ovechkin post up essentially by himself.

A dilemma like that can be tricky as Deryk Engelland shows on this chance where he gets caught between staying in his position down low and really challenging Ovechkin’s shot out beyond the circle.

View photos Via NHL Live More

More often that not, opposing teams opt to keep their defenders as close to the net as possible, making it impossible for them to get close enough to Ovechkin to alter his shot before it’s already off.

View photos Via NHL Live More

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