In perhaps the least surprising news of the day, Alex Ovechkin will sport the “C” on his jersey at this year’s All-Star game in San Jose on January 25-26, as he has been named the Metropolitan Division captain for the third time in the last four years.
Ovechkin returns to the ASG game for the sixth straight year and marks the eighth time he has been named an All-Star. The honor is well-deserved for Ovi, who is arguably playing the best season of his career, having tallied a league-leading 29 goals in addition to 15 assists in 35 games.
The 33-year-old Ovechkin will serve as the elder statesman among this year’s four captains at this alongside the Atlantic Division captain Auston Matthews (age 21), Nathan MacKinnon (23) representing the Central Division, and Connor McDavid (21) of the Pacific Division. The captains were named as a result of fan-vote, while the remaining players for the four All-Star rosters teams will be chosen by the NHL Hockey Operations Department.
The mid-season exhibition will continue with a 3-on-3 division-based format which originated at the 2016 All-Star game, in which all four division teams play in a single-elimination tournament consisting of two ten-minute halves followed by a shootout in the event of a tie. Ovechkin and the Metro division will look to repeat for the $1 million prize that they took home at the 2017 ASG bracket championship at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.