Capitals legend Alex Ovechkin reveals latest retirement plans originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Coming out of the Olympic break, the Washington Capitals have 23 games remaining in the regular season.
Alex Ovechkin will be asked a lot of questions about his future and potential retirement. But Ovi has other things on his mind.
He wants the Capitals to make a run at the playoffs, although they're currently on the outside looking in.
“We’re going to have to win almost every game to make the playoffs,” Ovechkin told NHL.com.
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He's currently in the final year of his contract with the Caps, the only team he's ever played with in the NHL.
Ovechkin comes out of the break with 919 career regular season goals, the all-time record.
Is he thinking about this being it?
“No, I don’t know yet,” Ovechkin told NHL.com. “We have to make a decision. We have to talk with the family, with (Capitals owner) Ted (Leonsis), [general manager Chris Patrick], and then we'll see.”
This season, Ovechkin has 22 goals and 26 assists in 59 games.
He closed the first half slow, though, with no goals in five games before the break.
“It's how I said, we have ups and downs,” he said. “It's not about me. You can see everybody was maybe a little struggling because last year, we scored like five, six goals in a game and it was easy. Right now, it's a kind of a struggling to find a way to find the net and I hope this break is going to help us, and now we're going to play much better.”
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Ovechkin will obviously play a big part in what happens the rest of the way. Even at 40 years old, he's a dangerous offensive weapon for Washington.
The Capitals would likely welcome him back if he wanted to keep playing. He's a franchise legend.
Ovechkin will "probably" decide that after the season, according to the article on NHL.com.
Right now, he's focused on winning hockey games. It's all he can really control for the next 23 games on the schedule.