Is this truly it for Ovechkin’s NHL career?
With just one game left on the calendar for the recently eliminated Washington Capitals, we could be seeing the final hurrah for one of the greatest to ever do it.
Alex Ovechkin’s contract is set to expire on July 1, leaving him to become an unrestricted free agent. At 40, nobody would be surprised to see the Russian winger call it quits as the NHL’s all-time leading goal-scorer. And if you watched the game against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, it’s hard not to get the sense that this could potentially be it.
But nothing is official yet, with Ovechkin not deciding anything – at least publicly – until the summer. On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton discussed the legendary NHLer, and what could be next?
Tyler Yaremchuk: “We’ve talked about Sidney Crosby getting one more shot in the Stanley Cup playoffs. (Sunday) could have been the final meeting between Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. We’ve speculated on this a lot over the last few months. Is this going to be Ovi’s final season? But what do you make of the Penguins wanting to stay after to shake his hand? He waves him off. He says, ‘No, no, no. You’re going back. Go back to the room. I don’t want any of this.’ We have had a couple of other moments that would suggest he’s coming back next year. He’s saying, ‘Hey, we’re not doing that farewell stuff.’
Sid vs. Ovi = era-defining hockey.
There is the other side of it. Him and Crosby take the opening face off against each other, and they both have a nice little chuckle as they battle. After the game, Crosby and Ovechkin exchanged sticks, exchanged jerseys, all that stuff. Like that part makes me go… Okay, maybe the two of them do know that this is the end. They’re just not really making it fully public. What did you make of all the Sid and Ovi stuff?”
Carter Hutton: “I thought the draw was great, too. And then Crosby just snaps it back on him. But there are a lot of things that tell me you think it’s over, right? The stick exchange and all the greetings that go into it. And then, maybe it’s just a factor of Ovi just doesn’t want to be recognized with the team handshake. And he just wants to go out on his own terms, too. So you could bite on different things and different topics. Either way, it’s so great to see what these guys have done for the game. But it makes you feel like he’s going to come back when he’s waving you off, and he’s still scoring 30-plus goals a year.
You can watch the full show below: