{"id":777285,"date":"2026-07-03T08:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777285\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:46:12","slug":"ovechkin-back-to-help-new-look-capitals-gear-up-for-stanley-cup-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777285\/","title":{"rendered":"Ovechkin back to help new-look Capitals gear up for Stanley Cup run"},"content":{"rendered":"

As much as Ovechkin enjoys adding to his NHL-record goal total, which stands at 929 after he led the Capitals with 32 goals last season, winning has always mattered most to him. His chase of Wayne Gretzky<\/a>\u2019s previous NHL record of 894 goals, which he surpassed when he scored his 895th on April 6, 2025, against the New York Islanders, cemented his legend and, undoubtedly, was important to not only him and his family, but also the Capitals and the League.<\/p>\n

He was never comfortable talking about trying to break that record, though, until after he led the Capitals to their first Stanley Cup championship in 2018, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That competitive drive has remained as Ovechkin has neared the end of his career. So, he wasn\u2019t interested in coming back to play out the string on some kind of farewell tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, 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,\u201d he said on April 16.<\/p>\n

General manager Chris Patrick knew from his end-of-season conversations with Ovechkin that he\u2019d be watching to see what the Capitals did this off-season. The Capitals are also preparing for life after Ovechkin, though, because his retirement is coming eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So Tuch, 30, Kyrou, 28, Jenner, 33, and Desharnais, 30, were added with the intent of them being part of the post-Ovechkin era, as well as potentially playing alongside him. Tuch was acquired in a sign-and-trade deal<\/a>, bringing with him an eight-year, $84 million contract ($10.5 million AAV) he signed with the Buffalo Sabres before the trade was completed. Kyrou has five seasons remaining<\/a> on an eight-year, $65 million contract ($8.125 million AAV) he signed with the St. Louis Blues in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m making the moves for what I think our team needs, what our hockey ops group thinks our team needs and how to make us the best team possible either with Alex or without Alex in the lineup,\u201d Patrick said after the completion of the 2026 NHL Draft on Saturday. \u201cAnd these are moves for the next several years in the future as well where I think we’ve got a really good core of players over the next several years that we have a chance to be a contending team for a while here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As much as Ovechkin enjoys adding to his NHL-record goal total, which stands at 929 after he led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-777285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777285","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=777285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}