ARLINGTON, VA — Long before he was an NHL player, Justin Sourdif was a Capitals fan. Sourdif spent his childhood in Surrey, British Columbia, firmly in Vancouver Canucks territory, but he found a favorite player in Alex Ovechkin more than 2,000 miles away in DC.
Sourdif says he was just six or seven when he got his first Ovechkin jersey. Ovechkin was still Washington’s alternate captain at the time, but he was already a superstar in the league, and Sourdif was enthralled from that moment on.
“I was kind of a Caps fan ever since,” he told RMNB. “I just love the colors, love the eagle, everything about it. And I even remember back in 2018 when they won the Cup, I was overjoyed. And I was super happy to see them get one.”
The child who received that jersey, the one who spent years cheering the team on from afar, could hardly have imagined that he’d one day don a Capitals sweater with his own name on the back. Sourdif began his career in the Florida Panthers organization as a 2020 third-round pick, playing primarily for the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers in his first three years as a pro.
He didn’t know, then, that the same Capitals team he’d grown up watching now had its eyes on him.
“He’s a guy we’ve liked for a few years,” general manager Chris Patrick said this summer. “We’ve tried to get him a couple times from Florida.”
Washington pulled the trigger on a Sourdif deal shortly before the draft this June, sending a 2026 second-round pick and a 2027 sixth-round pick to the Panthers in return. At the time, Sourdif had played just four NHL games, but the Capitals saw potential from his experience in the AHL, including when he helped eliminate the Bears from the Calder Cup Playoffs this past spring.
The trade not only allowed Sourdif to crack an NHL roster, but it meant he’d have the chance to fulfill a childhood dream.
“I was just, in shock to be honest,” Sourdif said. “I really wasn’t expecting it…To get traded here and to be able to wear this jersey now is just really surreal, and it’s just an absolute honor.”
Well over a decade after Ovechkin sparked his love for the Capitals, Sourdif found himself face-to-face with his boyhood hero as a teammate. Ovechkin wasted no time bringing him into the fold: by the time the puck dropped on opening night, the pair already had their own pregame tunnel handshake.
“[Ovechkin] wanted to start it, and then we figured something out and then kind of rolled with it,” Sourdif said. “It’s kind of like an up, down, and then we do like a little finger point at each other…
“It’s unreal. It’s super cool, something I never could have dreamed of. It’s just really fun and gets you loose before the game and just kind of reminds you why you’re there — you’re having fun.”
Sourdif has even gotten to take the ice with Ovechkin, playing alongside him for 10:16 in the first month of the season.
The rest of the team was similarly inviting. After a relatively quiet summer for Washington, Sourdif was one of the only new faces this fall on a Capitals roster that had grown especially close the prior season. Asked if he’d been intimidated to join such a tight-knit group, Sourdif explained that it was quite the opposite.
“Anytime you hear a team’s close, it’s actually nice to hear,” he said. “Because when a team’s close like that, anybody new who’s trying to integrate into the group, they’re very welcoming and they want everybody to be close.
“I heard from multiple people right after I got traded. They said, ‘You’re lucky; you’re going to a really good place. You’re going to a good spot, and the guys in the room are amazing.’ So it was definitely a relief, and I was just super excited to come down here.”
Sourdif’s role on the Capitals has been relatively small and with mixed success. He’s played on the team’s bottom six and has just one point — a goal scored on October 24 — on the season. But that hasn’t done much to dull the shine.
Few kids who grow up watching the NHL get the chance to join the league themselves. Fewer still get to play for their childhood team, and those who do don’t always see it go the way they hoped. Sourdif, however, is one of the lucky ones, and the chance to play in DC has lived up to his wildest dreams.
“To be here now and just be with the guys, it’s awesome,” he said. “I’m super, super grateful to be here. The team’s unbelievable, top to bottom: staff, coaching staff, trainers. Everybody’s amazing here.”
