Ovechkin wants to prove he can still play at high level for Capitals

Alex Ovechkin isn’t coming back for a 22nd season with the Washington Capitals for a farewell tour. 

In fact, the NHL’s all-time leader in goals left the door open that, though he signed a one-year contract on Thursday, he might stick around longer. That’s something to be decided later, though.

Ovechkin’s primary focus heading into this season is trying to help the Capitals win the Stanley Cup again and proving he can still be an impact player after he celebrates his 41st birthday on Sept. 17.

“When you look at our roster, it's Stanley Cup contender,” Ovechkin said Monday. “I was talking to my family, my wife, first of all, and she's like, ‘OK, let's play one more year.’ Or maybe two years. I don't know.”

Ovechkin was impressed by the moves the Capitals made this offseason, including adding three-time 30-goal scorers Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch in separate trades and signing versatile forward Boone Jenner and stay-at-home defenseman Vincent Desharnais. After missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, Washington was aggressive in upgrading its scoring depth and strengthening its defense to try to return to Cup contender status -- regardless of whether Ovechkin returned.

The resulting roster, with Ovechkin back in the fold, is what owner Ted Leonsis called, “probably our biggest or strongest or fastest, has the most depth of a team that we've had certainly since Alex has been with the organization.” That’s a bold statement considering the Capitals won the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s top team in the regular season three times during Ovechkin’s tenure (2010, 2016, 2017) and, of course, won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 2018, when he also won the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP.

“On the paper, you can see our team is one of the best teams,” Ovechkin said. “But now we have to work for the Stanley Cup; for playoffs, first of all, and then the Stanley Cup. We’re all going to do our best to prove that all the moves and all the signings that we did is going to work.”

Where Ovechkin fits into this revamped lineup remains to be seen after his average ice time was trimmed to an NHL career-low 17:27 last season. Ovechkin preferred to keep private the content of his conversations with coach Spencer Carbery, general manager Chris Patrick, and team president Brian MacLellan about his role.

“If they want to say that, they can,” Ovechkin said. “But for me, if I’m coming back, I have to be better.”

Ovechkin mentioned more than once needing to be better than last season, when he led the Capitals with 32 goals to increase his NHL record total to 929. Although he played all 82 games, Ovechkin struggled at times with consistency. 

He went at least four consecutive games without a goal five times, including a season-long nine-game drought from Dec. 5-23. He didn’t go more than three games without a goal the previous season, when he scored 44 in 65 games, including his 895th career goal against the New York Islanders on April 6, 2025, to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s previous NHL record of 894.

Ovechkin hinted a few times about changing his offseason plan with personal trainer Pavel Burlachenko, who he has worked with since 2017. Although he’s been on vacation with his family in Turkiye for the past month, Ovechkin said he’s already begun implement that plan.

“I’m at the gym almost every day, and I'm playing volleyball,” Ovechkin said. “Tomorrow, I'm coming back to Moscow and then we start skating, and we start to do some workouts. How I said, it's going to be different in the summer for me for different reasons.”

An avid soccer fan, Ovechkin talked with reverence about how Lionel Messi is still performing a high level for Argentina at 39 and Cristiano Ronaldo is doing similar for Portugal at 41 in the World Cup. Ovechkin planned to stay up late to watch Ronaldo and Portugal play against Spain on Monday.

“If you look at Messi and Ronaldo, like those players show (an) example that if you're able to continue to show the level that you have, the skill, it's tremendous,” Ovechkin said. “We watched almost every time Messi and Ronaldo, and you can see how they played. It's tremendous, and it's I'm very impressed about it.”

That perhaps played a role in Ovechkin returning as well. Ultimately, his family probably had the biggest say. He said his sons, Sergei, who turns 8 on Aug. 18, and Ilya, 6, were thrilled when he told them he planned to play another season.

He also acknowledged that his wife, Nastya, gave the final approval before he called Patrick to work out the details of his contract, which carries an average annual value of $4.25 million ($1 million salary, $3.25 million signing bonus) plus a $4.75 million games-played bonus (10 games).

“Well, obviously, family is first thing in our lives,” Ovechkin said. “She saw the kids every day they asked me like, ‘Are you coming back? Are you coming back?’” 

Ovechkin has had little to play for individually since breaking Gretzky’s regular-season goals record. With a combined total of 1,006 goals in his career, including 77 in the playoffs, he needs 11 goals to surpass Gretzky’s record (1,016), but that’s not why he came back.

“Let's win a Cup,” Leonsis said. “And then your questions will be to Alex if we win a Cup, ‘Will he come back for another year?’”

Stanley Cup or not, Ovechkin says he doesn’t have a plan for what happens after this season.

“We will see,” he said. “Right now, I'm focusing on coming back to D.C., and show that I'm still a good player and I can still help the team to win.”