WASHINGTON (AP) — While Alex Ovechkin reached another milestone, the Dallas Stars handed him and the Washington Capitals another loss in a game they felt they desperately needed to win.

Roope Hintz scored twice in the third period and the Stars rallied to beat the Capitals 5-4 in a shootout Thursday night, ending their two-game skid and spoiling the celebration of Ovechkin reaching 1,500 career points. Scott Wedgewood made 23 saves in regulation and overtime and three more in the shootout to send Dallas home happy from its road trip.

“We have no panic in here,’ said Matt Duchene, who played in his 1,000th regular-season NHL game. “It doesn’t really matter what we get down. We’re a very even-keeled, mature, veteran group. I don’t think we ever thought we were going to lose that game, even when we got down 3-1. We just had to pick it up, start playing our game.”

Duchene assisted on Mason Marchment’s goal in the second period to cap a special night for him with family in attendance, which included his father and son reading the lineup in the locker room beforehand. Tyler Seguin scored a night after leaving the team’s game Wednesday at Florida early, and Jason Robertson had the only goal in the shootout after getting two assists in regulation.

Well before overtime, Ovechkin got a standing ovation from the home crowd after Washington’s longtime captain assisted on Dylan Strome’s second goal for his 1,500th point. Ovechkin became the 16th player in league history to reach that mark, and he remains in pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record, needing 68 to break it.

“It’s a pretty cool number,’ Ovechkin said. ‘I always say without my teammates, I would never reach (this). It’s pretty cool.”

Fellow Russian Evgeny Kuznetsov was in the spotlight earlier in the night, scoring in his first game back after being a healthy scratch. The underachieving Russian center getting on the scoresheet was a good start to the reset Capitals coach Spencer Carbery was hoping for by sitting Kuznetsov, who had just nine points in his first 19 games to open the penultimate season of a $62.4 million contract that pays him $7.8 million annually.

“I think he was feeling it,” Ovechkin said of Kuznetsov. ‘Controlling the puck, speed through the neutral zone, created some chances for everybody. He was good.”

Aliaksei Protas also scored, and Charlie Lindgren made 34 saves as the Capitals lost for a fifth time in seven games. Strome’s two goals gave him a team-leading 10 this season.

Duchene has 20 points in 24 games this season, his first with Dallas after getting bought out by Nashville. Even though he’s a newcomer, the 32-year-old has been embraced by the Stars — and is fitting in perfectly.

“To play in the NHL isn’t easy and to stay for 1,000 games and play at the level he’s playing at is amazing,” coach Peter DeBoer said. “Happy to have him.”

UP NEXT

Stars: Open a three-game homestand Saturday against defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas.

Capitals: Host the Metropolitan Division-leading New York Rangers on Saturday.

As the 2023 NFL season enters the home stretch, conversations surrounding the league MVP are ramping up. And Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has rightfully played his way into MVP talks.

Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons has been saying it all season long. ‘Yall on here trying to convince Dak not top 3 in mvp!’ Parsons tweeted on Nov. 28, alongside a graphic comparing Prescott’s stats this season to Mahomes through Week 12. ‘Make it make sense.’

The Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, San Francisco 49ers’ Brock Purdy and Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson are dominating MVP talks, but Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons says another candidate should be in the mix — his quarterback Dak Prescott.

‘Yall on here trying to convince Dak not top 3 in mvp!’ Parsons tweeted on Tuesday, alongside a graphic comparing Prescott’s stats this season to Mahomes. ‘Make it make sense.’

Earlier in the month, Parsons pleaded for everyone to ‘open your eyes’ about Prescott on his ‘The Edge’ podcast: ‘I think that Dak Prescott should be in the MVP conversation. If you’re looking at numbers, what he’s able to do, his efficiency, things like that, Dak Prescott is playing at an elite level.”

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Parsons isn’t the only one singing Prescott’s praises. New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers said Prescott has become ‘one of my favorite quarterbacks to watch’ amid his Achilles injury rehab.

‘The last three or four weeks I’ve gotten to see more of (the Cowboys’) games, and I just want to say, he’s playing the position in a really impressive way,’ Rodgers said on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Tuesday. 

The Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, San Francisco 49ers’ Brock Purdy and Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson are also dominating MVP talks. Here’s how Prescott’s numbers stack up this season:

Dak Prescott stats

Prescott has a 70.1% completion percentage through 12 games this season (all starts), tied with Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. They both trail San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, who has a 70.2% completion rate through 12 games (all starts), and Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Jake Browning, who has a 75.6% completion rate through 4 games (2 starts).

Prescott has 3,234 passing yards (5th in the league), a career-high 26 passing touchdowns (1st), six interceptions and a career-high 108.3 passer rating, second only to Purdy (116.1).

In comparison, Purdy has 3,185 yards (7th), 23 touchdowns (4th), six interceptions with a 116.1 passer rating (1st) and a 70.2% completion rate (2nd) through 12 games. Mahomes has 3,127 passing yards (8th), 22 touchdowns (5th), ten interceptions (T-4th most) with a 95.1 passer rating and 67.8% completion rate through 12 games. Hurts has 2,995 passing yards (11th), 19 passing touchdowns (11th), 10 interceptions (T-4th most) with a 93.8 passer rating and 66.5% completion rate through 12 games.

How many interceptions does Dak Prescott have?

Prescott has thrown six interceptions through 12 games this season, compared to a league-high 15 interceptions thrown through 12 games played last season.

What is Dak Prescott’s primetime record?

Entering Week 14, Prescott has a career record of 70-39 as a starter. Prescott is 23-11 during his career in regular-season primetime games, including an 11-8 record on ‘Sunday Night Football.’

Here is a breakdown:

NFL Kickoff Game: 0-1’Thursday Night Football’: 6-1Saturday night: 1-0’Sunday Night Football’: 11-8’Monday Night Football’: 5-1

Dak Prescott MVP odds

According to the latest NFL MVP betting odds provided by BetMGM, Purdy is the frontrunner:

T-1. QB Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys (+300)T-1. QB Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers (+300)3. QB Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles (+400)4. QB Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs (+650)T-5. QB Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (+800)T-5. QB Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins (+800)

2023 NFL MVP ODDS: Brock Purdy moves up after Week 13

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Lawyers representing three college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences on Wednesday that challenges the association’s rules prohibiting athletes from being paid by their schools to play in their sports.

The case is being led by attorneys Steve Berman and Jeff Kessler, who have been — and remain — involved in several cases challenging various of the NCAA’s fundamental limits on compensation for athletes.

In this case, they are seeking an injunction that would end the association’s rules that prohibit schools from compensating athletes “for their athletic services.” They also seeking ‘substantial damages ‘ for Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men’s basketball and women’s basketball players at Power Five schools between Dec. 7, 2019, and whenever the date of judgment in this case occurs. This four-year reach-back for damages is permitted in antitrust cases.

The suit alleges that that the NCAA’s member schools “have passed a byzantine set of rules prohibiting the extremely talented young men and women who generate billions of dollars for the Division I sports business from receiving any compensation for their athletic services beyond an athletic scholarship and certain types of education-related benefits.

“These draconian, collusive rules prohibit what the NCAA refers to as ‘pay-for-play,’ but what anyone else would call market-value compensation. In college sports, only the athletes are treated as ‘amateurs.’ Everyone else involved enjoys the compensation that results from unrestrained competition for the athletes’ services.”

This becomes the latest in the type of antitrust lawsuit that the NCAA, its conferences and member schools are seeking to end through federal legislation that they also also want to use as vehicle to put national rules around college athletes’ activities to make money from their name, image and likeness (NIL).

The complaint was filed two days after NCAA President Charlie Baker sent a letter to NCAA membership proposing dramatic changes to the association’s rules concern athlete compensation. The changes include creating a new competitive subdivision whose school would be required to “invest at least $30,000 per year into an enhanced educational trust fund for at least half of the institution’s eligible student-athletes.” In addition, Baker wrote that ‘rules should change for any Division I school, at their choice, to enter into name, image and likeness licensing opportunities with their student-athletes.”

Baker’s proposal and his initial public comments expanding up upon them, Wednesday at the Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in Las Vegas, are both cited in the 66-page complaint. The suit then alleges that ‘any continued claim’ by the NCAA and the conferences that amateurism is a justification for rules prohibiting schools from paying their athletes ‘is now factually bankrupt.’

An NCAA spokesperson said Thursday evening that the association had comment at this time. But in what now seems like a prophetic exchange, Baker and Sports Business Journal’s executive editor Abraham Madkour discussed the NCAA’s legal issues and quest for Congressional intervention during Wednesday’s event.

Baker: ‘Part of the reason we’re talking to Congress is their ability to codify something, to say, ‘Yes, the NCAA and its membership, based on what we know about what they’re seeking to achieve here, should be able to actually do their job (in rules making).’ I think it’s an important element in this because otherwise, you just have everybody suing everybody all the time over everything.’

Madkour: ‘Right. I mean, you could be dropped with another lawsuit tomorrow …’

Baker: ‘I will be …’

Baker went on to elaborate on why the NCAA wants a ‘little’ antitrust exemption. With the constant threat of lawsuits, he said: ‘You can’t operate an association that way. You just can’t. And it’s important for us to at least have enough ability to do something. Look, the conferences can’t operate this way. … I get the fact that you got to figure out how to do this on a narrow enough basis so that it’s not viewed as just a fundamental desire to restrict. But at the same time, I do worry that the next the next place people are going to go is academic eligibility.’

Berman, of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Kessler, of Winston & Strawn LLP’s New York office, oversaw the Alston antitrust case that ended in a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA that lifted national limits on benefits for athletes that are related to education.

They are in the midst of another case that challenges the association’s remaining rules regarding athletes ability to make money from their NIL and seeks damages based on the share of television-rights money and the social media earnings it claims athletes would have received if the NCAA’s previous limits NIL compensation had not existed. A U.S. district judge has granted class-action status in the damages portion of that lawsuit, putting at least $4.2 billion at stake. The NCAA and the conferences are seeking review of that ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Berman and Kessler also are pursuing a case on behalf of former Oklahoma State football player Chuba Hubbard and former Oregon and Auburn track and field athlete Keira McCarrell that seeks retroactive damages for thousands of college athletes based on the nearly $6,000-a-year academic-achievement payments that were allowed by a U.S. district court judge in March 2019 and upheld by the Supreme Court in the Alston case.

The new case was filed on behalf of Duke football player DeWayne Carter, Stanford women’s soccer player Nya Harrison and TCU, and former Oregon, women’s basketball player Sedona Prince. Prince also is among the named plaintiffs in the NIL-compensation case pending before the appeals court.

In his first public comments since his father announced his diagnosis of post-traumatic amnesia, Carolina Panthers tight end Hayden Hurst said he plans to return to the field before the end of the season.

‘I appreciate everyone reaching out & checking on me,’ Hurst wrote Thursday morning on social media. ‘I suffered a pretty nasty concussion against the Bears a few weeks ago & don’t remember up to 4 hours after the game. Scary situation but the Panthers have been incredible walking me through this process.

‘While it was scary, it is NOT career ending. I’m starting my return to play this week, so fingers crossed I make it back for the last few weeks! God Bless & Keep Pounding !!!!’

Hurst’s father, Jerry Hurst, posted Wednesday night on social media that an independent neurologist had diagnosed his son with the condition and that it would be a ‘slow recovery, don’t know when he’ll be back.’

According to the National Institutes of Health, post-traumatic amnesia is an altered state of brain function that follows a serious brain injury. It has several complex symptoms that can often go unrecognized, though a loss of memory around the time of the injury, confusion, disorientation and other behavioral changes are common.

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Hurst suffered the injury Nov. 9 during a Week 10 game against the Bears. Midway through the fourth quarter, Hurst tried to make a catch across the middle of the field when Chicago safety Jaquan Brisker made a clean hit on Hurst’s midsection. Hurst’s head snapped with the force of the hit, and it also slammed into the turf as Hurst was brought to the ground. Hurst was slow to get up. He eventually re-entered the game.

The following day, he was placed in the NFL’s concussion protocol and has missed three games since the hit.

Hurst, 30, exchanged text messages Thursday with a reporter from ESPN and said he expects to return before the end of December.

‘I’m doing better each day,’ Hurst told ESPN. ‘It’s not going to end my career, just being cautious as I come back. Should be another week or two.’

Hurst has 18 catches for 184 yards and one touchdown this season. The Panthers (1-11) finish their season with games against the New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

‘It was a weird feeling for the first couple of weeks,’ Hurst told ESPN of the diagnosis. ‘I’m doing way better now.’