Alex Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in NHL history and one of the league’s all-time greatest players. The 40-year-old legendary winger would seemingly have every reason to become aloof and withdrawn from his teammates, but he has done the complete opposite and continued to foster a winning environment with the Washington Capitals.
Bruce Boudreau, who coached a much younger Ovechkin for parts of five seasons with the Capitals (2007-2012), has seen firsthand the impact The Great 8 has had on the club’s culture. Boudreau recently spoke with RG’s Andrew Knoll about the Caps captain and his consistent positive influence on the team that he’s now played on for 21 seasons.
“He’s created an atmosphere in that room that is second to none, where they all play for the team,” Boudreau said. “Sometimes you see superstars, that, when they do something great, that the team just says, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ But everybody on the Washington Capitals genuinely loves when good things happen to Alex, because he responds in kind and supports them.”
Ovechkin is famous for his big celebrations after scoring goals, and sometimes those celebrations get even bigger when he isn’t even the one putting the puck in the net for the Capitals. The “big man,” as his teammates affectionately call him, gets just as excited for Brandon Duhaime scoring his 33rd career goal as he does scoring the 911th of his storied career.
“[Ovi’s] been doing it for 25 years or whatever, he’s kind of seen it all,” Duhaime said in September. “For him to bring the same energy [every year] is – at least from what I’ve heard in his young years to now – is pretty incredible.”
Boudreau believes it’s that relatability and charisma that make Ovechkin such a great leader, which also helps push the Capitals forward as a unit. In the 20 seasons he has completed in the NHL with the Caps, the team has missed the playoffs just four times.
“He’s not the type of superstar that –– he knows he’s good, he knows what he’s got and everything –– has that air [of arrogance] about him,” Boudreau said. “He’s so down to earth, it’s crazy. He wants to play video games and all these fun things, he’s just a big kid, and that’s what makes him so lovable.”
Ovechkin still clearly has some of that youthful energy left in him as he’s scored 14 goals in 30 games this season, putting him on pace to flirt with a 15th 40-goal campaign. He is also just three points behind Tom Wilson for the team lead in scoring with 29 points, and only recently saw the end of a six-game point streak.
In part due to some clever deployment strategy from head coach Spencer Carbery, the Capitals are also still performing exceptionally well with Ovechkin on the ice five-on-five. During his minutes this season, the Caps have seen 53.4 percent of shot attempts, 54.9 percent of expected goals, 55.2 percent of scoring chances, and 52.8 percent of high-danger chances.
The great individual and team results have Boudreau already thinking Ovechkin may sign on for another season after his current contract with the Capitals expires next summer.
“The way he’s playing and, touch wood, if he doesn’t get hurt, if he ends up with 35 to 40 [goals], people are going to ask him if he wants to play again next year [and if 1000 goals is possible],” Boudreau said. “I can see those questions being asked a lot in the second half of the season.”
Ovechkin is currently 89 career goals away from reaching the 1,000-goal milestone and on pace to finish the 2025-26 season with 935 goals. He’d likely have to play at least two more years at the same level of production to hit four digits in goals.
Whether that happens seems to be up to Ovechkin, and his willingness to stick around in the NHL, which Boudreau seems to believe is still there.
“He’s scored some goals this year, whether it was his 900th or whichever, where you could see in the smile on his face that he’s really happy, he’s in a really good place,” Boudreau said. “I think everybody knew when he was 20 years old that he loved to play the game, and now, it’s coming out that he still loves to play the game.”