Alex Ovechkin reaches 1,400 recreation milestone with Capitals – The Washington Put up

When Alex Ovechkin was a rookie, his teammates had been involved he might need a coronary heart assault.
The Washington Capitals ahead, who was 20 when he performed his first NHL recreation in 2005, has all the time executed issues his personal approach. Again then, that meant a pregame routine of three Pink Bulls. When the remainder of his teammates had been consuming Gatorade or water between intervals, Ovechkin was downing soda.
“All of us simply sat there and mentioned: ‘Okay, this isn’t sustainable. This child’s going to have a coronary heart assault or one thing,’ ” recalled Olaf Kolzig, the previous Capitals star goalie who performed with Ovechkin from 2005 to 2008. “I don’t assume he’s on the identical recreation routine as he was with the Pink Bulls and the Cokes, however I don’t assume he’s consuming the identical quantity of water as everyone else.”
Nineteen seasons later, the small print of that routine have developed, however what stays the identical is Ovechkin’s dedication to his uncommon habits. And after he performed in his 1,four-hundredth recreation Saturday against the Florida Panthers, turning into simply the forty first participant in NHL historical past to succeed in that milestone, he was most likely the primary one to do it whereas sipping from a bottle crammed with Pepsi on the bench.
Since coming into the league in 2005, Ovechkin has performed in all however 59 of Washington’s video games, a whopping 96 %. Solely Patrick Marleau, Nicklas Lidstrom, Alex Delvecchio and Gordie Howe had performed in the next proportion of their groups’ video games on the time of their 1,four-hundredth.
“He’s kind of an enigma,” Kolzig mentioned. “He most likely doesn’t have the healthiest food regimen on this planet. He likes to have enjoyable with the boys, so he’s not a man that’s continuously looking for the magic elixir so far as diet or exercises. He’s type of an old-school, throwback participant. … He’s simply a kind of gamers that simply retains ticking.”
Ovechkin doesn’t all the time have a lot time for sentimentality, however Washington’s 38-year-old captain and talisman admitted that this milestone is significant for him.
“It’s clearly fairly large quantity, a lot of video games. Joyful that I’ve performed these video games in just one group,” Ovechkin mentioned. “It’s good. … Due to my dad and mom, give me good well being. I used to be fortunate sufficient to not have large accidents.”
It didn’t take lengthy for Bruce Boudreau, who turned Washington’s coach halfway via Ovechkin’s third season, to establish the traits that made his star participant particular.
“As soon as I noticed him, it turned actual that I used to be teaching there,” Boudreau mentioned. “He had that type of influence on me. He was simply all vitality, all go. It actually was ‘Russian machine doesn’t break’ at the moment. His physique was phenomenal. He simply did issues on the market that, I imply, there’s these sure folks on this planet the place every thing follows them, the place they’re the star individual.”
Of the 59 video games Ovechkin has missed, solely 35 have been due to damage — together with three he missed this season. However that doesn’t imply Ovechkin, like all hockey gamers, hasn’t performed via accidents.
Certainly one of Boudreau’s standout recollections is from December 2007, when Ovechkin wanted practically two dozen stitches to shut a lower on his thigh after a recreation towards the Pittsburgh Penguins, then went on to attain four goals in Washington’s next game two nights later.
“He couldn’t placed on any gear or something like this. I used to be simply [thinking], ‘There’s no approach he can play,’ ” Boudreau mentioned. “However he mentioned he’d play. … I simply keep in mind shaking my head on the finish of the sport. Right here’s a man that couldn’t even skate within the morning, and now he’s getting 4 targets and 5 factors or one thing foolish. I simply mentioned, ‘This man’s unimaginable.’ ”
Boudreau has been again across the Capitals in current weeks as he contributes to Monumental Sports activities Community’s broadcasts, giving him an up-close take a look at a rejuvenated Ovechkin.
It’s no secret that Ovechkin had a disappointing begin to the season. However after coming back from the break in early February, he scored seven targets in eight video games and stretched his level streak that started earlier than the break to 10 video games — his longest since a 14-game level streak in 2018. He was held and not using a level Saturday however got here inches from scoring on one among his basic power-play one-timers and was later stopped on an opportunity to win the sport in time beyond regulation.
“The final couple video games I’ve watched him,” Boudreau mentioned, “when he’s skating and he’s transferring, he’s each little bit of nonetheless Alex Ovechkin.”
Winger Tom Wilson has performed 735 video games within the NHL, all of them as Ovechkin’s teammate over the previous 11 seasons. To place Ovechkin’s milestone in context, he had performed practically as many video games as Wilson has now earlier than Wilson got here into the league — and has since performed that many once more.
“What a choose few group of gamers that obtain that quantity. It’s simply unimaginable,” Wilson mentioned. “And the best way that he performs the sport. You take a look at just about everybody above him, they usually didn’t play the identical approach he did, operating guys over and enjoying that energy ahead sort of recreation. It’s simply one other factor that he does that wows folks.”
Ovechkin has by no means shied away from the bodily aspect of the sport, whilst he has grown older. It regarded for lengthy stretches of this season as if his age had lastly caught as much as him; nobody can outrun Father Time without end, least of all somebody whose exercises “aren’t most likely the stuff of legend,” as Kolzig put it.
However at an important time for Washington’s faint playoff hopes, Ovechkin has turned in a classic stretch of performances, dragging the Capitals with him as he has executed for therefore a few years and reaching a big profession milestone alongside the best way.
“I feel his starvation most likely is his driving pressure,” Wilson mentioned. “Each recreation that he performs, he’s hungry to attain, he’s hungry to win, he’s hungry to be the best participant there ever was. It’s a kind of issues the place you simply watch him day-to-day and typically you’ve bought to pinch your self. It’s fairly loopy the quantity of video games he’s performed, what he’s executed.
“He’s carried this staff. [Playing] 96 % [of the games], all these stats and issues, you wouldn’t even imagine when you advised folks. What he’s executed, there’s actually no phrases to explain that.”

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