ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals have started the 2026-27 season with three wins in their first four games, but fans are still waiting to see Alex Ovechkin score his first goal of the year.
Ovechkin has gone goalless through the first four games of the season, recording one assist on Opening Night against the Carolina Hurricanes. But with so few games to draw from, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery isn’t sounding any alarms, chuckling when asked at what point Ovechkin’s goalless streak would become a concern.
“(I’m) not even close to there,” he said Saturday. “I don’t know the exact time (I’d get worried), but not concerned with it at all.”
Carbery pointed to multiple scoring chances Ovechkin created on Friday night in Washington’s win over the New York Rangers. During the team’s first power play of the night, Ovechkin rocketed a one-timer from his office at the left circle, stopped by elite goaltender Igor Shesterkin. He had another close chance early in the second period, this time nearly scoring on a netfront poke.
Though Ovechkin’s line with Dylan Strome and Anthony Beauvillier didn’t convert against New York, Carbery had no qualms about its performance.
“[Ovechkin] gets a sneaky chance early in the game…a little tip at the net front, which he gets a piece of,” Carbery said. “Obviously the one-timer chance. So, yeah, I thought their line did a pretty good job for the most part last night with Stromer and Beau.”
Ovechkin has now opened the season with a four-game goalless streak four times in his career, previously doing so in 2025-26, 2023-24, and 2012-13. All three of those prior streaks saw Ovechkin score in his fifth game of the season, and he ended each campaign still leading the Capitals in goals.
After announcing on Monday that this will be his final NHL season, Ovechkin has 80 games left to run up the score on his all-time goals record. He currently has 929 career goals, a comfortable 35-goal lead over Wayne Gretzky for first place.
Ovechkin, now 41, has taken on a reduced role for the Capitals so far this season, owing both to his age and the team’s depth at forward after an aggressive offseason. Only depth defenseman Dylan McIlrath (7:00) has had less ice time than Ovechkin’s average 9:21 per game at five-on-five.
“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 before the start of the regular season.
Ovechkin’s team-leading 3:33 per game on the power play partially explains that even-strength time deficit, but he’s no longer the fixture on both power-play units he was in recent years. After being on the ice for 91.6% of the Capitals’ power-play time last season, he’s played just 72.3% of the time on the man advantage this fall.
Carbery noted that Ovechkin has accepted his lower ice time, especially on the power play, with grace.
“He’s great with it,” Carbery said after the Capitals’ home opener on Wednesday. “I’m not going to say that he doesn’t want to be out there and he’s like, ‘Yay, thanks, Carbs for calling me off.’ That’s not how it is.
“But he also is understanding what we’re trying to accomplish as a team and the great players that he has around him. So any time that I talk about ‘Here’s why we’re doing it and here’s the reason behind it and here’s why this is going to help our team,’ he’s like, ‘All in. I’ll come off. Tell me when.’”
Ovechkin and the Capitals will complete their current three-game homestand against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday evening, with puck drop set for 5 pm. In 10 career games against the Kraken, Ovechkin has scored six goals.
