Alex Ovechkin has never wavered when it comes to sticking with the Washington Capitals, the franchise that made him the first overall selection at the 2004 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old superstar winger would have had suitors across the NHL willing to pay him an inordinate amount of money if he had ever wanted to leave the Capitals, but instead, he is in the middle of his 21st season with the club. Ovechkin recently explained to Jeff Marek and Bruce Boudreau<\/a> why he has felt such a strong loyalty towards the Capitals and Washington, DC, in general.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is obviously my second family,\u201d Ovechkin said on the Hockey Lifers Podcast<\/a>. \u201cThis is my second home. The relationship that we have, me, this team, ownership, it\u2019s great. Obviously, we\u2019ve been through ups and downs, but most important thing, if you\u2019re a hockey player, if you\u2019re spending so much time, we won the Stanley Cup. That\u2019s the most important thing, and you want to win more and more, but sometimes s*** happens.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we was unbelievable in the regular season, but we have some issues in the playoffs. But that experience, those guys that make it the first time in the playoffs, won the first round, it\u2019s going to help us and them in the future, for sure. Overall, the city, the organization, the fans, and everybody. I feel like this my second home.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout Ovechkin\u2019s tenure with the Capitals, the team has compiled a 867-528-189 record, tallying the second-most standings points (1,923) in the league during that span. They have won their division 11 times, claimed three Presidents\u2019 Trophies, and won the 2018 Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n Individually, Ovechkin has claimed the Calder Memorial Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Rocket Richard Trophy (9x), Hart Memorial Trophy (3x), Ted Lindsay Award (3x), Conn Smythe Trophy, Mark Messier Leadership Award, and is a 13-time NHL All-Star. He has also been captain of the Capitals since January 5, 2010.<\/p>\n Ovechkin is currently uncommitted to playing another NHL season beyond the 2025-26 campaign. The Great 8\u2019s contract with the Capitals expires next summer, and he\u2019s admitted that he plans to play out the entire year before deciding on his future<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI still love game,\u201d Ovechkin said last month<\/a>. \u201cI still have passion. You just enjoy it because you never know when you\u2019re going to get hurt or when you\u2019re going to be retired.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the uncertainty, Ovechkin has fans and teammates alike<\/a> trying to appreciate every single thing he does this season for the Capitals. Ovechkin, who broke the NHL\u2019s all-time goal-scoring record last season, recently hit both the 900-goal<\/a> and 1,500-game milestones<\/a> on home ice at Capital One Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin has never wavered when it comes to sticking with the Washington Capitals, the franchise that made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-293955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}