Ovechkin, who completed his 21st NHL season with the Washington Capitals in a 2-1 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday, is just beginning the process of figuring out his answer. So, the NHL\u2019s all-time leader in goals doesn\u2019t have anything more definitive to offer his sons yet either.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell them, \u2018We\u2019ll see,\u2019\u201d Ovechkin said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old left wing made it clear, though, that in a perfect world, he\u2019d like to come back for a 22nd NHL season.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest with you, I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not my last game,\u201d Ovechkin said before having his end-of-season exit meetings with coach Spencer Carbery and management. \u201cI hope it\u2019s not my last game against Columbus. I have to make a decision to see where we\u2019re at: the team, family.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the family is going to support me, like my wife and kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ovechkin, who is in the final season of a five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed with Washington in 2021, discussed some of the factors that will go into his decision. His health and what it would take for him to get ready to compete in the NHL next season with his 41st birthday coming on Sept. 17 is a big one.<\/p>\n
Ovechkin also wants to hear from general manager Chris Patrick and team president Brian MacLellan what moves they plan to make to improve the Capitals\u2019 chances of winning the Stanley Cup next season.<\/p>\n
Although Washington (43-30-9) made a late push to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, going 8-2-0 in its final 10 games, it was eliminated from contention when the Philadelphia Flyers clinched third in the Metropolitan Division on Monday. The Capitals qualified for the playoffs in 16 of\u00a0Ovechkin\u2019s 21 seasons with them, including winning their first Stanley Cup championship in 2018.<\/p>\n
This is the second time in four seasons, though, that\u00a0Ovechkin won\u2019t play in the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to tell everything to you what I\u2019m thinking, what the options are going to be,\u201d\u00a0Ovechkin said. \u201cBut, obviously, if I want to come back, it has to be a decision on, first of all, we\u2019re going to make the playoffs and we have to fight for a Cup. That\u2019s probably the biggest thing. Otherwise, if you take different scenarios, like family-wise, health-wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut team-wise, this is the most important thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ovechkin, who completed his 21st NHL season with the Washington Capitals in a 2-1 win against the Columbus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-608781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608781","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=608781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}