Alex Ovechkin launched Zdeno Chara into the bench, scored twice against Bruins

There are few people that would have the courage to attempt to flip Zdeno Chara over the boards and toss him into the bench. At 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, the 41-year-old Bruins defender is one of the largest and toughest customers in the history of the NHL.

Seeing players hit into benches is a semi-regular thing in hockey, but it’s not every day that we see someone with those physical measurements go flying. It’s also not every day that Chara gets hit by Alex Ovechkin.

Late in Thursday’s contest between the Washington Capitals and the Boston Bruins, the two captains collided. It was at that moment that what was thought to be both scientifically and mathematically improbable occurred.

It appears that the 33-year-old Russian saw his opportunity and just went for it. He had Chara on the edge of disaster and gladly finished him off. And although the video is fantastic, it’s the photos that truly do this incident justice. Based on the look on his face, Chara couldn’t believe what happened either.

(In fairness, Ovechkin himself is 6-foot-3 and only 15 pounds lighter than Chara. But, still! This is Chara that we are talking about here.)

The forgotten victim in all of this is Washington’s Chandler Stephenson. He was just minding his own business on the bench when all of the sudden he had a mountain of a man on his lap. That is definitely not an ideal situation to be in.

You could say that the play gave Ovechkin some life, though.

With the score knotted at one in the second period, he ripped his 31st of the season past Boston’s netminder Jaroslav Halak to give his side a one-goal advantage.

He also iced the game with an empty netter from his own defensive end to put things to bed with just over 90 seconds remaining. Well, he did that after dumping the 6-foot-5 Brandon Carlo in front of the Bruins’ net shortly after his first twine-tickler of the night.

His two-goal, four-hit performance helped Washington pick up the 4-2 victory, the Capitals’ 14th straight over the Bruins.

With the 32 tallies to his name so far this season, he now has a three-goal advantage over Buffalo’s Jeff Skinner and Toronto’s John Tavares (who also had a big game on Thursday) in the race for the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy.

What a weapon.

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