Nick Castellanos hit a grand slam, and the Philadelphia Phillies rallied with two runs in the seventh inning to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-7 on Sunday.

NEW YORK — Everybody knew the goal was coming.

When Alex Ovechkin launched his week-long scoring spree last Sunday, then scored another — and another — for an electric two-goal performance to tie The Great One himself on Friday, the hockey world was held captive.

When the Washington Capitals star strode into UBS Arena on Sunday morning, loosening and unlooping his tie en route to the locker room as though he couldn’t hit the ice fast enough; when he emerged to cheers and chants during warmups, a sea of red amid New York Islanders orange and blue all here to witness history, the anticipation was palpable.

When he swung those famous yellow-laced skates over the boards for a second-period power play, strode across the blue line and into his office as a perfect cross-ice pass landed on his tape, every ounce of air in the arena was caught in a collective rink-wide gasp.

And when the Great No. 8 scored his 895^th career NHL goal, the one he’s hunted down over the course of his 20 years in the league, history was made.

That goal against the Islanders, and that diving celebration, his teammates all launching themselves from the bench to smother him in hugs and helmet pats and whoops of glee and celebratory roars, will be forever immortalized in hockey lore.

That he scored goal No. 895 with a signature laser-beam shot from just above the left faceoff dot made the moment so perfectly “Ovi.”

So was the celebration, a belly-flop slide towards centre ice, reminiscent of his D.C. fountain splash with teammates after winning the Stanley Cup in 2018. And that’s what this chase was all about, really — that wave of joy that rippled around the rink and far beyond it, across the entire landscape of a game forever changed by No. 8.

It was, in the words of the man himself post-game, “an unbelievable moment.”

“I’m probably going to need a couple more days, maybe a couple weeks, to realize, what does it mean to be No. 1,” Ovechkin said post-game.

It was, of course, a lot to take in. The NHL stopped play for nearly 25 minutes, rolling out the red carpet — or, rather, a carpet of Islanders blue — to mark the occasion with Ovechkin’s family, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Capitals owner Ted L