The glow from the 895th goal still hovers over hockey, and Alex Ovechkin won’t play in front of fans again until Thursday night. It’s ample time for the Washington Capitals to exhale and reset for the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs, which – as Wayne Gretzky told them Sunday in the locker room after his record was broken – are more important anyway.
But add this wrinkle to what forever will be a historic season: What if this is Ovechkin’s last?
This might seem an odd notion given the events of the past month. Ovechkin’s 895th career goal Sunday against the New York Islanders – the goal that moved him past Gretzky for the most in NHL history – was also the 42nd of his 20th season. Keeping in mind that Ovechkin missed 16 games because of a broken leg and thus is on pace for 56 goals over 82 games – more than he scored in any full season since 2008-09 – he doesn’t seem like a player who is winding down.
There’s also the matter of Ovechkin’s contract. In the summer of 2021, he signed a five-year deal that ensured he would be a Capital for the rest of his NHL career. That contract runs through the 2025-26 season. If he wants to play here after he turns 40 – which he does in September – there are $9.5 million and who knows how many goals waiting for him.
Yet as Ovechkin grew closer and closer to Gretzky’s mark, plenty of people around the Capitals wondered: Could this be it? There are a few clues that suggest it could.
First is the gravitational pull of his native Moscow. His mother, Tatyana, still lives there. His wife, Nastya, is Russian. Earlier in his career, whenever the Capitals were bounced from the playoffs, it seemed as if he was on the first flight home.
And there’s some thought that whenever Ovechkin’s last season of hockey takes place, it will be in the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League. Might he like to do that at 40 rather than 41?
Given how much Ovechkin means to the Capitals, to hockey in Washington, to the NHL as a whole, it’s hard to imagine a season without him. But allow the mind to travel to strange places – including the idea that the 2025-26 Capitals could eventually be better with Ovechkin in retirement.
Better without their current leader in goals? Work with me here.
Ovechkin has no peer as a pure goal scorer. That was true when he arrived. That will be true when he leaves. That was true in the two decades in between. He scored those 895 goals in 1,487 games – the exact number Gretzky played to score his 894 – since his rookie year of 2005-06. The next-highest total in that time: 622 from Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby. In other words: It’s not particularly close.
But it’s also realistic to point out that, at this point, Ovechkin’s overall game is – how to put this? – limited.
Over the course of his career, even when he was in his prime, Ovechkin often found people picking apart his game. He frequently didn’t backcheck with particular enthusiasm. He could be a defensive liability. His coaches – and there were many – knew it.
“I always have a philosophy: If the good outweighs the bad, don’t screw it up by trying to make the bad so much better that it upsets the good,” said Bruce Boudreau, a hockey philosopher who served as Ovechkin’s coach during the seasons in which he won his first two Hart Trophies as the league’s MVP. “If he was going to get three goals a night – or be on the ice for three or four goals – but he allowed one goal where it was totally his fault, I’m saying the good outweighs the bad.”
That approach has served Ovechkin and the Capitals well over the years. But as his career draws closer to the end, current coach Spencer Carbery has limited the situations in which he deploys Ovechkin. Ovechkin has never been a member of the penalty-kill unit, and that’s fine. Rarely, though, is he ever on the ice for a faceoff in the defensive zone.
At this stage, it’s no surprise Ovechkin is logging a career-low 17 minutes 47 seconds of ice time. But it’s also telling how those minutes are distributed: No one in the NHL plays more than Ovechkin’s 4:10 per night on the power play. That strategy has led to 13 power-play goals for No. 8. It also means that Ovechkin is “double-shifting” when the Caps are a man up, staying on the ice as the other four skaters are replaced by fresher legs.
Plus, watch Ovechkin on the Capitals’ power play. Yes, because he’s dangerous – and No. 895 came on a cross-ice pass from Tom Wilson when the Caps had a man advantage. But also watch if Washington has to carry the puck into the offensive zone. It’s essentially a four-on-four entry because Ovechkin is set up near the blue line on the left wing, waiting for the system to get established.
He is hardly a liability. But he is limited. Twenty years into a career, that’s not at all surprising. It leaves Ovechkin with a career-low 13:36 of ice time per game at even strength. Ryan Leonard, four games into his NHL career, already averages more.
Which is one more reason Ovechkin’s retirement – whenever it happens – wouldn’t be devastating to the Capitals’ fortunes. Leonard’s arrival – straight from Boston College into the top six forwards in the lineup – is the latest reminder of how successful this season has been.
Washington addressed a laundry list of needs last summer. It locked up new goaltender Logan Thompson and new defenseman Jakob Chychrun to long-term deals in the middle of this season. The bridge to the post-Ovechkin era isn’t under construction. It’s already built.
This is not at all to kick Ovechkin to the curb before he’s ready. He has earned the right – more than earned the right – to end things on his terms. But with the goals record now in hand and one final push for a deep postseason run ahead, it’s not crazy to think his terms might be sooner than later.
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