Washington Capitals Don’t Even Know Alex Ovechkin’s Decision
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin on Monday. He was asked about Alex Ovechkin and what his future holds with the Washington Capitals.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Scott Laughlin: “Dave, going back to yesterday (Sunday), obviously, Colorado outlasted Washington. The Caps get a loser point. They’re barely hanging on in the playoff race. I mean, let’s face it, it doesn’t look good for them to be in the postseason in the Eastern Conference with these teams around them playing as well as they are for the most part, and yet, Alexander Ovechkin gets his 1,000th career goal. That’s regular season and playoffs combined. Only he and Gretzky have gotten to that point. Gretzky now 16 goals in front of Ovi in the battle for the all time lead in terms of regular season and playoffs combined.
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We’ve been talking about this a lot here lately. What are your thoughts on Ovechkin? Like, do you think he’s into the final couple of weeks of his NHL run? Or do you think that maybe he comes back and all of a sudden we get the Anze Kopitar sort of farewell tour. Where, at the end of it all, in every city he goes to, he gets the handshakes and maybe a couple of gifts thrown his way, those sorts of things. I mean, what are the possibilities here? Do you think for Ovechkin here in the coming weeks and potentially even the coming months ahead?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, I mean, look, I wish I knew. I’ve talked, I’ve almost bribed some of the teammates and some of the people in that organization as well. Do you know? Come on, tell me. Give us some insight. And even they don’t know. They wouldn’t be surprised if he does keep it going. But he just hasn’t given any indication that this is it.
Now you can ask people to speculate and make guesses. Some people say, Yeah, this might be it and others would suggest, maybe he wants 1000 regular-season goals, not just across the board, so maybe it’s a couple more years or whatnot to have him back in the mix.
Look selfishly, I would love for him to play at least one more season and let everyone know that this is going to be his final season, so he can have that farewell kind of tour. There was uncertainty at the start of the year. He didn’t know.
You look at (Evgeni) Gino Malkin, he didn’t know either at the start of the year. As the season progressed, the way he’s played, he’s made it clear he wants to come back, and they’ll figure that out with the Penguins, once their season wraps up. Doesn’t look like it will be overly difficult to get a one-year extension in place for him.
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I’ve got to think that if he wants to come back, the Capitals are going to keep that open as long as he wants it. And, I do hope, as I said, just the selfish part of me on the hockey side, we’d love to see him go out with a bang, do the full tour, and, honor his career, and just how much of a talent he’s been.
So I hope this isn’t it. I haven’t been given any indication one way or another, but again, if he’s going out, it’s obviously on his terms, and I hope we get at least one more year at it.”
NHLRumors.com Note: Nobody knows when these retirements will come. Wayne Gretzky announced it five days before his game in 1999. So Alex Ovechkin could call it a career at the end of the season. The Capitals play a home-and-home with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby to close out the season. So it would be fitting for him to retire against Crosby.
Again, it all depends on how he feels and the direction of the team. But most want him to come back to retire with Crosby.
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