From Beauvillier to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2024-25 season for every player who laced ‘em up for the Washington Capitals for a significant number of games during the campaign, with an eye towards 2025-24. Next up, Alex Ovechkin.
The Bio:
#8 | Left Wing | Shoots: Right
Height: 6’3” | Weight: 238 | Born: September 17, 1985
Birthplace: Moscow, RUS | Acquired: Drafted by the Capitals 1st overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft
Cap Hit: $9,500,000 | Signed Through: 2025-26 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via EP)
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: Perhaps you’ve heard, but no player in the history of the sport has ever scored more regular-season NHL goals than Alex Ovechkin, who has 897 of ’em… and counting.
The Good: This season was very much about “the Gr8 Chase” as Alex Ovechkin ran down Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring mark, but this wasn’t some old man hobbling across the finish line – Ovechkin scored 44 dang goals, third-most in the League, despite missing 16 games with a broken leg. Ovechkin’s 0.68 goals per game were second on the circuit among skaters who played more than one game (Leon Draisaitl, 0.73), and his 2.05 goals-per-sixty at even strength led the League among the 823 skaters with more than 50 minutes in those situations. That’s absurd, and not just fueled by a high shooting percentage (the highest of his career by a wide margin) – only Auston Matthews and Zach Hyman had higher expected goal rates at evens. Ovechkin’s 2.3 all-situation goals-per-60 rate was the highest of his career, and this is a dude who once dropped 65.
Reminder: Alex Ovechkin turned 39 years old a month before the season started. (Draisaitl was nine years old when Ovechkin made his NHL debut.)
Ovechkin’s 44 goals tied Gordie Howe for the most by a player age 39 or older, and his 14th 40-goal season extended his own NHL record. Along the way, Ovechkin notched two hat tricks and four other multi-goal games, meaning he lit the lamp in a game more often (36) than not (29) in 2025-26. He passed Jaromir Jagr for most game-winning goals in NHL history (135), registered his 1,600th career point, et cetera, et cetera and was the Caps’ nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for “the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey.”
The greatest goal-scorer in NHL history also led the Caps in goals in the postseason with five, including the first playoff overtime goal of his illustrious career in Game 1 against Montreal (his second of the game), and registered three or more shots on goal in seven of the Caps’ ten games.
Oh, and despite his age, Ovechkin has been able to maintain essentially the same level of defensive effectiveness as he’s provided in recent years. Ahem.
The Bad: Gaudy goal totals aside (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…), Ovechkin was a bit of a drag on his team at five-on-five, as the skaters with whom he shared the ice the most at fives were, to a man, worse (in terms of expected goals) with Ovechkin than without:
Granted, those are expected goal rates, and Ovechkin has been defying “expectations” for two decades (to wit, among Caps skaters with 250 minutes played at five-on-five, no one posted a worse on-ice expected goals-for (xGF) percentage than Ovechkin (45.4), but only two skaters – Pierre-Luc Dubois (62.4) and Aliaksei Protas (61.6) – posted better actual goals-for percentages than The Captain (59.0)). Only once since 2015-16 has Ovechkin had an xGF% north of 50 percent (50.2 in 2019-20), but in two-thirds of those seasons, he’s been above 55 percent. So, yeah, the Caps were “worse” with Ovechkin on the ice this year, in a “comfortably outscored their opponents” kinda way. Just awful. Regression may well be on the horizon, but not today in 2024-25, Satan.
In terms of postseason play, after a monstrous throwback performance in Game 1 of the first round, Ovechkin only scored three goals in nine games and failed to register a single assist.
At this point, there are no mysteries left, no surprises: Alex Ovechkin is what he is – a freak of nature and a force with whom to be reckoned, an offensive threat and a defensive blackhole. And when the percentages go in his favor (as they did this year), he is still an absolutely magical player to watch.
The Video: Duh.
The Discussion: Welp, here we are. We can start with the usual – what do you see as Ovechkin’s role next season in terms of what’s best for both the player and the team? But the bigger question isn’t about 2024-25, but 2025-26 and potentially beyond: just how much gas is left in Ovechkin’s tank, and will he be in D.C. or Moscow when those fumes run out? Will/should this next season be – dare we ask? – Ovechkin’s victory lap and farewell tour? Ugh.
The Vote: Rate Alex Ovechkin below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season – so if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.
