Alex Ovechkin announced on Monday that this will be his final NHL season, which left his teammates trying to describe something none of them have experienced. Tom Wilson has been there longer than anyone, and he could only think of one occasion that came close.
“I don’t think you can really predict what it’s going to feel like,” Wilson said, per Russian Machine Never Breaks. “I mean, he had a nap the other day for like an hour or so, and he wasn’t around. That’s the closest thing that we’ve had to no Ovi on the Caps.”
How long have Tom Wilson and Alex Ovechkin been teammates?
Wilson arrived in Washington in 2013, eight years into Ovechkin’s career, and the two have been teammates ever since. His first NHL goal came on a pass from Ovechkin, which he described at the time as “pretty cool.”
They are also the last two players left from the 2018 team that won the franchise’s only Stanley Cup, something Ovechkin brought up himself at a team dinner in Annapolis last week.
“O was looking at me at dinner,” Wilson recalled.
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The scale of what’s ending is easier to grasp through a number than a sentence. There are now 28 players in the NHL who were born on or after the day Ovechkin made his debut, two of them currently Capitals.
Ovechkin, who turned 41 last month, confirmed the decision exactly 21 years to the day after that debut, having scored 929 goals in 1,575 games. He told his teammates before the public announcement and received a standing ovation in the room.
Wilson, for his part, didn’t hedge on where his captain lands historically.
“He’ll forever be the captain of the Washington Capitals, the greatest ever,” he said.
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