He has 780 goals, which is the third most in NHL history, and he seems to have just as many tribute videos. Tuesday included messages not only from the men he’s crossed paths with this year (Marcel Dionne, Brett Hull, Jaromir Jagr) but also from his parents, his wife and his children in Russia.
Ovi’s standing ovation was beautiful and deserved, but it certainly wasn’t the news of the day. After Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the New York Islanders, there are two games left. The Stanley Cup playoffs — God, even the phrase makes your spine tingle — start next week. And Ovechkin, 36, is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
That’s hockey lingo for “He hurt his shoulder when he hit the boards, but he’ll be back when it’s safe.”
His availability for the playoffs?
“I mean I hope so,” coach Peter Laviolette said Tuesday morning.
Peter, with all due respect, you don’t expect that. you know
Here’s the most pertinent point about next week: Since their playoff debut in 2008, Ovechkin’s Capitals have played 141 playoff games. Ovechkin has laced up his skates 141 times.
Day to day? Sure, yeah, fine. Whether the opponent for Game 1 is the Florida Panthers or the New York Rangers, when the puck drops to open the playoffs, Ovechkin will be in uniform, ready to launch his body, a heat-seeking missile for the back of the net. . There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, and that in itself is remarkable.
Step away from hockey for a moment. Think of the mainstay, the star athletes who have come and gone here since Ovechkin first arrived 17 years ago. Ryan Zimmerman was and always will be Mr. National, but his career was interrupted and altered by, whatever, pick an injury, the shoulder that forced him from third base to first or the foot that kept him out of the alignment or the hip that annoyed him forever. Robert Griffin III was a lightning bolt, until the grass at FedEx Field grabbed him, shattered his knee, and he was never the same. Stephen Strasburg is a World Series MVP who missed out due to Tommy John surgery and then the more daunting thoracic outlet syndrome. When he will pitch again, we have no idea.
Keep going. In John Wall’s last three years in Washington, he played 73 games. The Wizards just finished a season in which Bradley Beal played just 40 times. Elena Delle Donne won the WNBA MVP award and led the Mystics to the title in 2019, and she played just three games the next two seasons.
No Washington star is immune to calamity except Ovechkin.
“Honestly, his style of play, you’re going to get hurt,” longtime running mate Nicklas Backstrom said.
That is completely logical and demonstrably false.
Here are some old stats worth updating, because as Ovechkin approaches 40, the numbers mean more jaws hit more floors. Since his rookie year of 2005-06, the Capitals have played 1,460 regular-season and playoff games. Ovechkin has appeared in 1,415 of them. That’s a good 96.9 percent submission rate. Maybe there are no participation medals. But there should be some kind of reward for a gray-haired dad who grabs his lunchbox so often.
Not only has no player appeared in more games in that span than Ovechkin, but no one is within 25 games of him. It’s to the point where 21-year-old Connor McMichael, who took Ovechkin’s spot in the lineup Tuesday night but was 4 when Ovechkin played his first NHL game, knows the drill.
“You always hear, ‘The Russian machine never breaks,'” McMichael said Tuesday. Do you know why you always listen to it? Because ever since Ovechkin used that phrase in 2006, it’s still true. He missed 10 games in 2009-10 (several with a shoulder injury) and 11 games in the eventful 2020-21 season, some for violating the NHL’s coronavirus rules and others for lingering injuries. His games were lost in his other years: one, zero, zero, three, three, four, zero, four, one, three, zero, zero, one, one and now three this year, the first two because he was in the NHL. Coronavirus protocols.
So for something like the 10th season in a row, the question: How the hell does he keep doing this?
“Sometimes there has to be a bit of luck,” Laviolette said. “But he is a very strong guy. He is physically well organized. I can not explain [it].”
It just keeps happening. The attitude around the Capitals, even as Laviolette tried to add a bit of mystery about the playoffs, is that Ovi is Ovi, and when the puck drops, he’ll be there.
“I just think in my head, he’s so strong,” Backstrom said. “He plays through everything. It’s just the way he is as a man. He doesn’t miss games. And it doesn’t matter how hurt he is. He is one of those guys you can always count on.”
A wonder, then. But here’s the thing, too: there’s going to be one of these bumps against the boards, one of these slow kicks to get up, that matters. That’s logical. Even if Ovechkin doesn’t play in the Capitals’ remaining two games, Thursday at the Islanders and Friday at the Rangers, he became the oldest player to score 50 goals in a season. There’s a reason no one has done that at 37: Physical skills wear thin and even staying on the ice becomes difficult. That’s true for Backstrom, who at 34 is coming back this season with a hip problem that could be a problem for the rest of his career.
But Ovechkin does not take well to logic. In Game 5 of the 2017 first-round series against Toronto, Ovechkin collapsed in the first period. He didn’t put weight on his left leg as he headed to the locker room. His game seemed over, the rest of the playoffs in doubt.
But when the door opened and the Caps took to the ice for the second period, there he was, coming forward.
“He’s the kind of guy who replaces the pieces and moves on,” former Caps defenseman Nate Schmidt said that night.
The parts are still producing. He did not play Tuesday night. Don’t worry.
“It’s tough,” Laviolette said. “He hates not playing the game. He hates being away, so he’s going to want to come back as soon as possible, and we’ll make sure he’s in a good place to do it.”
Do you know when would be a good place? Next week, when the playoffs start. This is no longer the time for tribute videos. It is a time to enhance legacies. Alex Ovechkin is aware of all that. There is no chance of him not showing up, with all the strength of him.
Reference-www.washingtonpost.com