ARLINGTON, VA — Even after decades in the NHL, Alex Ovechkin still gets a little nervous before Opening Night. Ovechkin, 40, will play in his 21st season-opening game for the Capitals on Wednesday, his first since breaking the all-time goals record in April.
Few players have more experience at this than Ovechkin, now just nine games away from his 1,500th, but he admitted on Tuesday that he still felt some jitters.
“How I say, it’s going to be nervous tonight,” he said. “First time, the first couple games, it’s always going to be hard, because it’s different speed, different intentions. Crowd is going to be much more involved.”
Ovechkin has little left to prove at this point. He sealed his inevitable place in the Hockey Hall of Fame long ago, lifted the Stanley Cup in 2018, and passed Wayne Gretzky as the league’s top goal scorer last spring. On the eve of a new season, however, Ovechkin was just as eager as ever to get back to competing.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “Obviously, you work very hard all summer to get ready for this moment. Of course, it’s going to be a big, exciting night for us because, for me personally, I can’t wait (until) it starts. Training camp is good, preseason games is good, but the real deal is coming tomorrow.”
Asked what he was most looking forward to, Ovechkin had a simple answer.
“Probably warmups,” he said. “I hope my kids are going to make up for warmups.”
The summer was longer than Ovechkin would have liked. Washington outperformed expectations, posting a 51-22-9 record and finishing first in the Eastern Conference last season, but the team ultimately fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round of the playoffs, winning just once in the five-game series.
After a 2024-25 campaign that saw a slew of players put up career-best seasons, the Capitals will look to prove that their record wasn’t a fluke. Ovechkin isn’t satisfied with just trying to repeat last season, however, as he has his eyes on a bigger prize.
“I don’t think it’s going to be pressure on us,” he said about the team’s strong 2024-25 season. “Of course, the success that we had last year, we’re going to try to repeat. But success is — in the playoffs, we don’t have success. So regular season, yeah. But overall, I think as a hockey player, you want to get success in the playoffs, not the regular season.”
Nearly all of Ovechkin’s peers have hung up their skates. Only he and Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin remain from the 2004 draft class, and Ovechkin will be the third-oldest player in the NHL this season. With over two decades in the league and the goal record under his belt, however, Ovechkin’s mindset has stayed the same. In fact, he’s already thinking about his next milestone—the three goals he needs to hit 900.
“I think he’s been normal Alex from the two years that I’ve been here,” Carbery said. “From a preparation (standpoint), in meetings, his aura and just his energy and enthusiasm every morning, it’s been very much the same, even after breaking the record. He’s already looking at 900 like, ‘Hopefully that happens tomorrow night.’”
The Capitals start their season at home inside Capital One Arena against the Boston Bruins. Ovechkin has had plenty of success in prior home openers, starting with his thunderous NHL debut in 2005, when he burst onto the scene with his first two career goals.
Overall, in the first home games of each season in his career, Ovechkin has recorded 31 points (19g, 12a) in 20 games. His best output in a single home opener is four points, which he has done twice, scoring four goals against the Montreal Canadiens in 2017 and tallying two goals and two assists against the New York Rangers in 2021.
