Playing for the Capitals is all Ovechkin has ever known in the NHL since they selected him with the No. 1 pick in the 2004\u00a0NHL Draft. And he\u2019s been the face of the franchise for two decades, including as captain of their first Stanley Cup championship team in 2018.<\/p>\n
Ovechkin played in all 82 games again this season, marking the fifth time in his career that he has not missed a game, and he led the Capitals again with 32 goals and 64 points. Capitals coach Spencer Carbery tried to help him add another goal to his total by leaving him on the ice for the final 1:49 after the Blue Jackets pulled goalie Jet Greaves<\/a> for an extra attacker.<\/p>\n Ovechkin looked like he might get his 930th goal when Tom Wilson<\/a>\u2019s pass sent him ahead on the right wing, but he couldn\u2019t get the bouncing puck to settle, and his shot went wide right of the empty net.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I wanted him to maybe, if this is it, to ice it with one more empty-netter,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cHe had a good look at it; the puck just was rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n Carbery said there was some discussion about Ovechkin\u2019s uncertain future during the postgame meeting in the locker room but preferred not to share what was said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll just keep that between us,\u201d Carbery said.<\/p>\n An emotional Wilson said Ovechkin tried his best to keep the focus off him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s doing his best job just to keep it normal,\u201d said Wilson, his eyes glassy with burgeoning tears. \u201cHe definitely doesn’t want any extra attention. I mean, he’s the man. However he wants to do it, I think he’s going to let it go down. But right now, he’s not tipping us. He’s not telling us what’s going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ovechkin said the first step in his decision process will be the Capitals\u2019 end-of-season meetings on Thursday. He has mentioned multiple times that his health will be a consideration as he approaches his 41st birthday in September. He plans to sit down with Carbery, general manager Chris Patrick, team president Brian MacLellan and owner Ted Leonsis in addition to talking to his family.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to stay a little bit in D.C.,\u201d Ovechkin said. \u201cI don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to fly, probably May, fly back home.\u201d<\/p>\n If this was Ovechkin\u2019s last NHL game, there was some symmetry to it being against the Blue Jackets. He made his NHL debut against Columbus on Oct. 5, 2005, in Washington and scored two goals in a 3-2 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playing for the Capitals is all Ovechkin has ever known in the NHL since they selected him with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-605155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}