The Penguins and Capitals play twice this weekend, in Pittsburgh on Saturday and in Washington on Sunday. The schedule is no coincidence. If this is the end for Ovehckin \u2014 he said Wednesday that he\u2019ll wait until after the season<\/a> to make a retirement decision \u2014 it\u2019s only fitting that a couple of games against Crosby cap his career. The Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry has captivated hockey fans for 20 years, bringing so many back to the sport<\/a> after the 2005 NHL lockout.<\/p>\n Crosby sat down with The Athletic this week to share his thoughts on the uncertainty hovering over Ovechkin\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been on my mind quite a bit,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about him a lot, because I know it\u2019s something that has got to be on his mind constantly right now. When you get to a certain age, it\u2019s the way it is. Every player is going to have to deal with it at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n Crosby\u2019s Penguins are almost guaranteed a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs, which begin April 18<\/a>. Ovechkin\u2019s Capitals, a surprise playoff team last season, have disappointed in 2025-26 and are a long shot<\/a> for the postseason.<\/p>\n Ticket prices for Sunday\u2019s game at Capital One Arena have skyrocketed, just in case this is the end. Like everyone else, Crosby is simply waiting to hear a decision from Ovechkin, who turns 41 in September.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s accomplished so much and has had an amazing career,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cAnd I know that he still has an incredible passion for that game. That\u2019s obvious. It\u2019s definitely crossed my mind a lot lately, wondering what he\u2019s going to do, because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin in 2017. (Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Larry Bird once said that he felt lost in the NBA after Magic Johnson\u2019s 1991 retirement. With his greatest rival gone from the league, there was no one else to measure himself against and no relevant box scores to track.<\/p>\n Crosby said he will know that feeling if indeed Ovechkin departs the NHL.<\/p>\n \u201cOh man,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, it would be so weird if he\u2019s not around anymore. It would be weird, especially because we\u2019ve (almost) always been in the same division. We see each other so often. We came into the league together. So, really, it\u2019s all we\u2019ve ever known. There have been changes. You play with a lot of different guys over the course of 20 years. But for me, seeing him a few times a year, and seeing him in the playoffs, has always been a constant.\u201d<\/p>\n Crosby\u2019s Penguins and Ovechkin\u2019s Capitals have met four times in the postseason, with all four ranking among the most memorable series of this century. The Penguins won three of the four, with the Capitals finally conquering their nemesis in 2018. On all four occasions, the series-winning team also won the Stanley Cup that spring.<\/p>\n When Crosby looks back at his career, he said, the Penguins-Capitals war will probably be the first thing to pop into his mind.<\/p>\n \u201cThose were incredible series,\u201d the Penguins captain said. \u201cWe had to go through them to get there. The way that both teams played in the regular season was just getting into position to play each other in the playoffs. We basically built our teams with the other team in mind, knowing that the other one would probably be there. And the way those series went, the Game 7s. There are a ton of memories from those games, those series. There will be a ton of memories for me in terms of playing against Ovi over the years, but those series will stick out above everything else. I\u2019ll think about those forever.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin pose together in 2007. (Dave Sandford \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Ovechkin, of course, won\u2019t play forever. Neither will Crosby, who turns 39 in August. And through all of the years of intense competition and high stakes, Crosby\u2019s admiration for Ovechkin has only grown.<\/p>\n Crosby, a pass-first player, has always been the stylistic polar opposite of the shoot-first Ovechkin. When someone in the Penguins\u2019 locker room once made a joke about Ovechkin\u2019s \u201cCy Young\u201d stat line, Crosby snapped back at Ovechkin\u2019s tendency to produce far more goals than assists.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could shoot the puck like him,\u201d Crosby said with a grin in 2019, \u201cI\u2019d probably shoot all the time, too.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2009, Crosby and Ovechkin posted matching hat tricks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Ovechkin\u2019s Capitals won that battle, but Crosby\u2019s Penguins won the war in seven games. However, Ovechkin\u2019s performance in that series \u2014 scoring eight goals while being a physical menace throughout \u2014 has always remained in Crosby\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople talk about (Ovechkin\u2019s) shot, and yeah, it\u2019s great,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cBut the thing about him back then was, he\u2019d have six or seven huge hits during the course of a game, even though he was playing all of those minutes. That\u2019s so hard to do. Just an incredible hockey player.\u201d<\/p>\n Crosby is preparing for the playoffs for the first time since 2022, and his team\u2019s dream season has his full attention. Still, he\u2019ll allow some time for some nostalgia this weekend. Crosby rarely looks back, and even more rarely is he introspective when discussing his career. He\u2019s wired to look ahead, to win the next game. For Ovechkin, though, he lowered his guard.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this is it for him, if that\u2019s the way it works out, I think it\u2019s pretty cool that the schedule worked out the way it did,\u201d Crosby said.<\/p>\n Few players \u2014 and few rivalries \u2014 live up to the hype like Crosby and Ovechkin. But the two icons have, incredibly, surpassed their lofty expectations and played some of their greatest hockey against each other. They carried the NHL at a time when the league badly needed it. Despite being vastly different characters \u2014 Crosby the understated Canadian, Ovechkin the charismatic Russian \u2014 and constantly drawing comparisons to each other, they\u2019ve formed a friendship in recent years.<\/p>\n At the end of a 2019 game in Pittsburgh, Ovechkin thought Crosby was approaching him to begin an altercation. Instead, Crosby came over to congratulate Ovechkin on reaching the 1,200th-point milestone. In 2023, Crosby and Ovechkin skated with Ovechkin\u2019s young son, Sergei, at the NHL All-Star Game Skills competition.<\/p>\n \n Alex Ovechkin and his son Sergei with PK Subban and Sidney Crosby at the 2023 NHL All-Star Skills Competition. (Jasen Vinlove \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n Once upon a time, Crosby and Ovechkin were children dominating a league of men. Now, as one of them may have reached the end, Crosby has nothing but gratitude for all of it.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel very fortunate that I\u2019ve gotten to be in the same division against the greatest goal scorer of all time,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cIt\u2019s been an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 Like it or lump it, Sidney Crosby has a soft spot for Alex Ovechkin.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[385,1790,99,1791],"class_list":{"0":"post-576507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-washington-capitals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576507","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=576507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Crosby](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-632948476.jpg\")
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