ARLINGTON, VA — Alex Ovechkin may not have played this preseason, but he’s ready to hit the ground running on Opening Night.
After missing all four of the Capitals’ exhibition games with a lower-body injury, Ovechkin said Wednesday that he will be good to play against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. He also confirmed he sustained the injury during training camp, rather than over the summer.
“I think we’re all excited,” Ovechkin said of Opening Night. “Our first game is going to be against Stanley Cup champs. It’s going to be a good battle for us.”
Ovechkin has now been fully practicing with the team again for nearly a week, back in action at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for longer than he was out injured. Last week, head coach Spencer Carbery characterized the decision to hold Ovechkin out of preseason games as “cautious,” noting that a setback would be needed to keep Ovechkin out of Friday’s game.
Per Carbery, the top priority was ensuring Ovechkin is at full health going into Opening Night, not getting him ice time in an ultimately inconsequential game. Ovechkin mirrored Carbery’s sentiment on Wednesday.
“I feel okay, but it sucks that I miss games,” Ovechkin said. “But it is always better to feel healthy during the year than to get some more injury in the preseason.”
Ten teams already played their first games on Tuesday night, with more to begin their campaigns on Wednesday and Thursday, but the Capitals have several days off before a fast-paced start to their season this weekend. After facing the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday, they’ll head to Florida to face the Tampa Bay Lightning (including old friend John Carlson) on Saturday.
“The start is very important for us mentally-wise,” Ovechkin said. “We’re not going to have an easy schedule in the beginning; we’re going to play back-to-back against Carolina and then Tampa. It’s going to be a good challenge.”
Ovechkin, who turned 41 at the start of training camp, is set to begin his 22nd NHL season after signing a one-year deal this offseason. He acknowledged that, even before accounting for the injury, he felt the effects of the newly shortened preseason this fall.
“You don’t get used to it,” he said. “Usually you still have a week or 10 days before the games start and you have more time to prepare yourself, more workouts, more ice time. But it is what it is. Nothing you can do.”
Between Ovechkin’s age and his lack of preseason ice time, Carbery knows he may need to make role adjustments as the season gets underway, but he expressed confidence in Ovechkin’s capabilities.
“It’s a hard thing to answer, because I expect O to be O, but I also understand where he’s at in his career, and it’s my job to help him along, whether it’s deployment, minutes, power play deployment, all that stuff,” Carbery said Wednesday. “And especially early in the year, because he hasn’t played any preseason games, of making sure that I’m watching early and trying to set him up for success.
“But I expect him to be up and running fairly quickly and up to game speed, and we’ll just monitor it. But I expect O to be O. He’ll be flying out there and full of energy and jump and leading the charge.”
