{"id":9934,"date":"2025-07-20T07:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T07:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/9934\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T07:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T07:02:08","slug":"alex-ovechkin-capitals-havent-had-extension-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/9934\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin, Capitals Haven’t Had Extension Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

While not surprising news in the slightest, Capitals superstar\u00a0Alex Ovechkin<\/a>\u00a0confirmed to reporters in Russia today that he hasn\u2019t had extension talks as he gears up for the final season of the five-year, $47.5MM contract he signed back in 2021 (via Andrey Senchenko of RIA Novosti<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Ovechkin, who turns 40 in September, also seemed to imply that any talks on a new deal would wait until after the 2025-26 season ended. \u201cA year will pass and we will think about it,\u201d Ovechkin said (translated from Russian).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s in line with the wait-and-see approach that Ovechkin had said he\u2019ll take ever since last season ended. The Capitals aggressively walked back<\/a> an erroneous email that got sent out in late May claiming that 2025-26 would be his final NHL season, and he told Russian media last week<\/a> that reports of his retirement were \u201cpure nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an extremely familiar situation to the last time that Ovechkin\u2019s deal was set to expire. He didn\u2019t sign that five-year extension until the last day before free agency opened in 2021, so the two sides are obviously comfortable taking things down to the wire. There\u2019s been no indication that Ovechkin would consider playing for any other NHL team than Washington; it\u2019s long been speculated that he\u2019d head to the KHL for 2026-27 if he doesn\u2019t sign another contract with the Caps.<\/p>\n

Delaying extension talks also doesn\u2019t have nearly as much bearing on Washington\u2019s team-building process as it did five years ago. Any subsequent contract for Ovechkin would only be for one year, allowing them to load up his deal with performance bonuses to keep his cap hit low if they end up making other moves that take up most of their space. The Caps also need to consider the future of defense cornerstone John Carlson<\/a>, also now a pending UFA, as well as a new deal for promising center\u00a0Connor McMichael<\/a>, who\u2019s a restricted free agent next summer.<\/p>\n

Even with those names in play, the Caps are still extremely well set up for the 2026 offseason with $36.5MM available to fill seven roster spots, according to PuckPedia<\/a>. That\u2019s right around the median in terms of projected cap space next summer, but only six teams have more roster spots already accounted for.<\/p>\n

Likely influencing Ovechkin\u2019s desire to return to Washington will be his desire to chase 1,000 NHL goals, and whether that\u2019s even achievable based on what he produces this year. Injuries limited him to 65 games in 2024-25, but he still managed 44 goals, remarkably his highest goal-per-game pace in five years and enough to make him the league\u2019s all-time leader. He\u2019s now at 897 in 1,491 games over his 20-year career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While not surprising news in the slightest, Capitals superstar\u00a0Alex Ovechkin\u00a0confirmed to reporters in Russia today that he hasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[9927,49,48,4247,448,82,754],"class_list":["post-9934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-alex-ovechkin","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-newsstand","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-washington-capitals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934","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=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}