NHL’s all-time main goalscorer Alex Ovechkin to retire at finish of season
Alex Ovechkin stated on Monday that his twenty second season within the NHL might be his final, starting the farewell tour for the longtime Washington Capitals captain who holds the league’s profession goalscoring document.
Ovechkin instructed his teammates of his resolution earlier than the Capitals posted a message from the Russian star on social media.
“It’s unhappy, however it’s what it’s,” Ovechkin stated in his locker room handle. “It’s laborious, however let’s take pleasure in it and let’s do some particular issues this 12 months.”
Ovechkin signed a one-year contract this previous summer time and turned 41 in September. All indicators pointed to this being the tip of his profession, and he stated he and his household determined as a lot in current months.
“I really like this recreation a lot, however I do know in my coronary heart it’s the fitting resolution,” he stated in Monday’s assertion. The Capitals’ residence opener is on Wednesday evening.
Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky’s objectives document in April 2025 and entered this season at 929. The entrance workplace acquired Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch in trades and signed fellow ahead Boone Jenner and defenseman Vincent Desharnais in free company so as to add round a younger core within the hopes of creating one other lengthy playoff run and contending for the Stanley Cup.
“We have an unbelievable staff this 12 months,” Ovechkin stated. “Let’s make the playoffs, let’s have enjoyable and benefit from the second as a result of occasions fly.”
Ovechkin has spent his complete profession with Washington, successful the Calder Trophy as rookie of the 12 months in 2005-06, the Hart Trophy as MVP 3 times and main the NHL in scoring 9 occasions. He was playoff MVP in 2018 when he led the Caps to the first Stanley Cup championship in franchise history.
There’s been hypothesis Ovechkin might obtain an unfriendly reception on the street after he appeared in an ad for a celebration aligned with Vladimir Putin through the offseason. But there wasn’t a lot signal of that through the first two video games of the season – at Carolina and at Tampa Bay.
When he addressed the fallout from that the Putin advert, Ovechkin confirmed he’d be going again to dwell in Russia when he retired from the NHL.
In Washington’s season-opening win over the Hurricanes, Ovechkin had slightly below 13 minutes of ice time, the bottom of his profession in a recreation when he wasn’t injured or ejected.
The Capitals missed the playoffs in 2025-26, however Ovechkin performed all 82 video games and scored 32 objectives. He’s reached 30 in each season of his profession besides 2020-21, when he performed solely 45 video games.
Long earlier than he broke by means of through the Capitals’ Stanley Cup run, Ovechkin had rejuvenated hockey in Washington, and he’ll retire as one of many metropolis’s most achieved athletes in any sport. The Capitals drafted him No 1 general in 2004, and he and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby turned stars virtually instantly in 2005 when the league emerged from lacking a season due to a lockout.
Ovechkin’s mixture of goalscoring ability, physicality and boundless power made him an prompt hit, and he scored a career-high 65 objectives in his third season, which earned him the primary of his Hart Trophies.
Washington’s penchant for postseason heartache, which existed lengthy earlier than Ovechkin confirmed up, adopted him for some time as nicely. The Capitals gained the Presidents’ Trophy 3 times with the league’s greatest regular-season document, falling brief within the playoffs every time earlier than a Washington staff that merely gained its division lastly went all the best way within the playoffs.
In 4 postseason conferences between Crosby and Ovechkin – in 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018 – the winner gained the Stanley Cup every time.
