Alex Ovechkin’s hair started greying years ago, but he never looked his age on the ice. Until now.
The start of the 41-year-old’s final NHL season has been disappointing, though perhaps not entirely unexpected. The greatest goal-scorer of all time has just one to his name after 15 games — the fewest of his 22-year career. Ovechkin’s time on ice is also down to a career-low 13:49 per game.
“His minutes and power play — with the strength of our group and depth at forward — he knew that some of the opportunity for him was going to come down,” Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery told The Athletic. “And he’s, like, ‘I just want to win.’ It’s not a front that he’s putting up. That’s what he says to me.”
The Capitals were aggressive in addressing their forward group over the summer, trading for top-six wingers Alex Tuch (team-high 11 goals) and Jordan Kyrou (team-high 14 points). Washington’s plan was never to lean on Ovechkin the way it did over the previous two decades.
“(Ovechkin) or not, to make ourselves a playoff team, we needed to add some more forward talent,” Capitals general manager Chris Patrick told ESPN this summer after Ovechkin announced his return.
Although Ovechkin is listed as being on the top line on the Capitals’ depth chart, he is 11th among forwards in five-on-five ice time (9:52 per game). Only rookie Ilya Protas (9:24 per game) is below him. It also places Ovechkin 335th out of 374 forwards who have played at least 10 games this season.
Ovechkin has not been a total liability at five-on-five: Washington has outscored opponents 9-7 and generated 50.6 per cent of the expected goals in his minutes. Carbery, however, rarely deploys Ovechkin outside of the offensive zone.
Nearly 50 per cent of Ovechkin’s even-strength shifts start in the offensive end, fifth among forwards behind Carolina’s Nicolas Deslauriers (52.2 per cent), Chicago’s Connor Bedard (51.5 per cent), Columbus’ Kent Johnson (50.5 per cent) and Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin (50.2 per cent). Ovechkin’s offensive-zone start rate has actually dropped from last season, when it was a league-high 59.6 per cent.
At this stage of his career, Ovechkin was expected to be a power-play merchant. But Ovechkin, whose 331 career power-play goals are far and away the most in league history, has yet to score one this season. He still leads the Capitals with 21 shot attempts, including 10 one-timers, on the power play, but only six (23.8 per cent) have hit the net. Two of his one-timers (20 per cent) have been on target.
The Capitals are also no longer keeping Ovechkin on the ice for entire power plays. He has played 68.1 per cent of Washington’s total power-play time, a steep drop from last season’s 91.6 per cent and the second-lowest rate of his career, behind 2006-07 (68.1 per cent).
Despite Ovechkin’s disappearance from the scoresheet, the Capitals still boast a top-10 offence in goals per game. They are one of the league’s top teams at generating shots from the slot, where 44.2 per cent of their total attempts at five-on-five originate (third highest). Washington also ranks fifth in rush scoring chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five.
A drop-off in Ovechkin’s production is unsurprising. Four players in league history have scored at least 20 goals in their age-41 seasons or later: Gordie Howe (twice), Jaromir Jagr (twice), Johnny Bucyk and Teemu Selanne. But a drop-off of this magnitude is disheartening.
Perhaps there is still hope for a bounce-back. Ovechkin scored eight goals over his first 43 games in 2023-24 before finishing with 31. The following year, he missed 16 games after breaking his leg and still broke Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record.
If Ovechkin’s incredible career ends with a whimper, however, at least he held off Father Time for as long as he could.
“It’s been a pretty good career,” Ovechkin told reporters last month. “Pretty good 22 seasons.”
--All stats via Sportlogiq/Teamworks
