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Alex Ovechkin skates at optional morning practice, will be a game-time decision against Avalanche

By Chris Cerullo

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January 24, 2023 1:55 pm

Alex Ovechkin took the ice on Tuesday morning for his second straight day of practice after missing Saturday’s morning skate and the team’s game later that night against the Vegas Golden Knights. It was Ovi’s first missed game of the season.

The Great Eight was labeled as day-to-day with a lower-body injury by head coach Peter Laviolette on Monday. The veteran bench boss followed that up by deeming the Caps captain a game-time decision for Tuesday’s matchup against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell was first on the reporting.

Ovechkin skated on a four-man line with Dylan Strome, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and Aliaksei Protas at practice on Monday. Now that he has been listed as a game-time decision, we won’t know his actual status for Tuesday night’s game against Colorado until the warmup line rushes.

“I thought he looked good, but he’s still day-to-day,” Laviolette said Monday. “It was good to get him back out there though.”

The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir then tried to pry Laviolette for a little further information and asked if the team would have a better idea during Tuesday’s morning skate.

“Yeah. Day-to-day,” Laviolette said smiling. “One day is today and then we’ll see how he is in the second part of that tomorrow.

“But yeah, it was good to see him out there,” he continued. “He looked good. He was moving well out there.”

Ovechkin leads his Capitals team in both goals (30) and total points (52) in 48 games played this season. He had been on pace for 51 goals and 88 points over a full 82-game slate until missing out in Vegas. The Caps dropped that decision to the Golden Knights 6-2 without their main man.

One star player that will for sure not be participating in the action is Colorado defenseman, Cale Makar. Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar confirmed that news to The Athletic’s Peter Baugh on Tuesday.

Makar has missed three straight games with an upper-body injury. The Avs haven’t exactly missed him though as they’ve won all three games by a combined score of 10-3.

Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB

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