The Washington Capitals are doing right by their franchise player as he mulls over one of the biggest decisions of his life.
With Alex Ovechkin’s retirement decision looming over the team’s off-season plans, the Capitals have decided to give the franchise legend some space and time as he weighs the possibility of hanging up his skates.
“Team’s position is we’re giving him some time here to get away from the season a little bit and think things through and talk to his family, and then he’ll meet with both [president of hockey operations Brian MacLellan] and I, and we’ll continue to support him in however his decision process plays out,” Capitals general manager Chris Patrick told reporters at his end-of-season availability on Monday.
“We could’ve met with him the day after the season ended, but I don’t think he was ready at that point to have that conversation. I think he needs to take some time. Just get away from it, I mean, he just played 82 games in a really hard season, just have a few days with his family to just kind of veg out a little bit then he can start thinking about what the future holds.”
Last week, at his own end-of-year availability, Ovechkin said that he hopes he hasn’t played his final NHL game and that he’s not yet ready to give a definitive answer on what his future holds.
He told reporters that he has something of a timeline figured out, stating that he may have a clearer idea of where he stands in two weeks, but that he’s “pretty sure it’s not my last game.”
Though Patrick said that the team would “like to know going into the draft” as to whether or not Ovechkin would return, he made it clear that the NHL’s all-time leading goalscorer had “earned the right to do the process how he wants to. So we’ll just work with whatever we get from him, information-wise.”
Either way, the Capitals are heading into the off-season prepared.
With $36.5 million in projected cap space to work with this summer, per PuckPedia, the team believes they have the financial flexibility to improve their roster whether Ovechkin returns or not.
“I think we’ll be able to have a plan with or without him. No different than really any off-season where you have some players that are expiring. You can go down different paths depending on what happens with them,” Patrick said. “So same thing with him, even though he’s the greatest goalscorer of all time. If he decides to stay, we’ll go one way; if he decides to retire, we’ll go a different way.”
Ovechkin is coming off another solid campaign that saw him build on his all-time goal-scoring lead, potting 30 markers while suiting up for all 82 games at 40 years old. He also surpassed the 900-goal plateau, becoming the only player in NHL history to do so.
What may be harder to deal with should Ovechkin retire is the impact he provides off the ice, for the Capitals, the community, and for the game of hockey.
“I think his presence is huge. When he decides to leave, it’s gonna leave a big hole, personality-wise, leadership-wise,” MacLellan said. “You see he brings it to the team plane, the team bus, to the dressing room, to pre-game warmup — he’s got a big presence.”
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