Alex Ovechkin will be missing foreseeable time from the ice. The Washington Capitals star captain underwent further evaluation Thursday and was diagnosed with a left fibula fracture, the team announced. Ovechkin is expected to miss four to six weeks.
Ovechkin, 39, was initially ruled week to week with a lower-body injury Tuesday following an accidental, knee-on-knee collision with Utah Hockey Club forward Jack McBain during Monday’s 6-2 victory.
Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin underwent further evaluation with team doctors. It was confirmed that Ovechkin has a fracture to his left fibula and is anticipated to miss 4-6 weeks.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 21, 2024
Ovechkin, who is in pursuit of the NHL’s all-time goals record, has 15 goals and 10 assists in 18 games played so far this season. He sits at 868 career goals, just 27 shy of passing Wayne Gretzky’s record.
What does this mean for Ovechkin?
That he will probably have to wait until next season to break Gretzky’s goal record.
There aren’t many examples of athletes pushing 40 recovering smoothly from a lower-body injury as significant as a broken tibia. He’s no average athlete, but he is human — and he’ll need time to knock off rust, at the very least, and also work his way into game-level fitness upon returning from this injury.
With Ovechkin, the legs feed the wolf so to speak. He’s a brute force of a goal scorer, powering shots with his lower body. He’s appeared to be skating like a player at least five years younger this season — does that change when he returns from a broken bone?
There’s no way to answer that question now.
Still, even if he returns by early 2025, he’ll likely need a hot streak to pass Gretzky this season.
His chance of the goal record was destined to become the story of the second half of this season — one that perhaps could generate interest the NHL has not seen, at least in the United States, in many years.
He’s too close to the record not to get it eventually. But it looked like he might knock it off on his way to an improbable 50-goal season, if not a run at a fourth Hart Trophy.
This was shaping up as a legacy-defining season for an all-time icon behind whom the NHL could potentially break into the mainstream sports conversation. All of that may be off the table because of this injury. — Rob Rossi, NHL senior writer
How does this impact the Capitals?
The Capitals surprised many people by making the playoffs last season — and they did so largely in part to Ovechkin finding his scoring groove in the second half.
Their emergence this season as a seeming dark horse Cup contender coincided with Ovechkin’s scoring surge. It was as if an improved roster was also being fueled by its captain’s finishing form.
There’s no way to overstate how big a blow losing Ovechkin is to the Capitals, though. Even when he’s not scoring, if he’s on the ice, he’s a threat that draws opponents’ top defensive pairings and often best defensive forwards. And on the power play, where he’s arguably the most dangerous weapon the NHL has known, Ovechkin is irreplaceable.
The Capitals are more than just Ovechkin, but not having him for at least a month — and it’s totally unknown how he’ll look when he does return — is as significant an obstacle as any team has faced this season. — Rossi
(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
