Photo credit: Rich Lam
After suffering an undisclosed upper-body injury earlier this week, Alex Ovechkin will not play against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday. It will be the first game the Caps have played without Ovechkin since February 22, 2012.
The precise nature of Ovechkin’s injury is not known. RMNB’s Ian Oland investigated some possibilities on how he might have sustained it.
With 10 goals in 12 games, Ovechkin had been on one of the hottest streaks of his career– one driven primarily by a dependably high shot volume rather than an unsustainable shooting percentage. Missing Friday’s game imperils Alex Ovechkin’s bid to break the single-season shooting record held by Phil Esposito as well as his position near the top of the league’s scoring leaders.
Ovechkin played all 48 games last season, but has not played a full 82-game season since 2007-08. He missed three games in 2011-12 due to suspension and one more due to injury a few weeks later. The Capitals won just one of those four games, losing another in overtime. Those games featured goals by Mathieu Perreault (5), Cody Eakin, Dennis Wideman, and Matt Hendricks– all of whom have since left the club.
The Washington Post’s Katie Carrera shared this photo of Ovechkin doing some sprints with the Capitals conditioning coach.
The Capitals’ lines without Ovechkin look as follows:
Erat – Backstrom – Fehr
Laich – Johansson – Brouwer
Chimera – Grabovski – Ward
Volaptti – Latta/Beagle – Wilson
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