Another disappointing ending for Alex Ovechkin and his Capitals.
If Alex Ovechkin hadn’t led the Washington Capitals to a Stanley Cup championship in 2018, the franchise would probably be considered one of the most futile in the National Hockey League when it comes to playoff hockey. The Caps haven’t been past the second-round in the Ovechkin era before or after the title campaign, and any hopes of rectifying that were quickly dashed by a much-superior New York Rangers team in Round 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Blueshirts beat the Caps 4-2 on Sunday night at Capital One Arena to complete a tidy 4-0 sweep in the best-of-7 series, becoming the first team to advance to the second-round in the process. The President’s Trophy winners were just too much for Washington to handle from start to finish, and the league’s best regular-season club showed no signs of slowing down in Round 1.
Although the Capitals weren’t expected to win this series, Ovechkin was certainly not expected to finish without a single point. The Great Eight, who is second behind only Dallas Stars forward Joe Pavelski among active players in postseason goals, was unable to beat Igor Shesterkin once in four tilts.
And that’s the first time in history The Great Eight has been held without a point in a playoff series in his career. Ovechkin has been a beast in the postseason in the nation’s capital, but that simply wasn’t the case for the 38-year-old this time around. And social media let him know it on Sunday night.
Alex Ovechkin this Playoffs:
— 0 goals
— 0 assists
— 0 points
— 0 wins
— 0 PIMSThis isn’t 2018 Ovechkin anymore. pic.twitter.com/zCDwxvKOk9
— Big Head Hockey (@BigHeadHcky) April 29, 2024
Ovechkin 2024 playoff highlights pic.twitter.com/LVY984fPW9
— Will 🤘 (@JohnCarlsongang) April 29, 2024
Ovechkin may be the most useless playoff player in NHL history. All he cares about are his stats. And Putin. Mostly Putin.
— Slava Malamud 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@SlavaMalamud) April 29, 2024
Rempe outscoring Ovechkin is easily the funniest outcome of this series.
— Sprecks (@SprecksNY) April 29, 2024
Alexander Ovechkin’s career pic.twitter.com/4ftlzrHkM8
— I Rink You Should Leave (@nhlleave) April 27, 2024
Ovechkin’s decline has been noticeable this season. He’s having issues keeping up with the pace, especially in these playoffs. If he breaks Gretzky’s record…and that’s still quite likely…I don’t think it will be by many.
— Grant McCagg (@grantmccagg) April 29, 2024
no doubt in my mind alex ovechkin breaks the goal record, but he just no-showed an entire playoff round, i think we’re approaching the end
— matt (@yinzzzerr) April 29, 2024
Alex Ovechkin, Capitals suffer yet another disappointing playoff defeat
Ovechkin probably has a few more seasons in him yet. But will the Capitals be back in the dance in 2025? The captain not recording a single point in a playoff series for the first time in his career could be a sign of something more sinister for the league’s most prolific goal scorer.
No. 8 leads one of the oldest rosters in the NHL, and it took until the final game in 2023-24 for the Capitals to even advance. It’s going to just as if not more difficult next season, with a couple of Eastern Conference teams who missed out this time around aiming to change that in 2025. It also doesn’t help that the Capitals were minus-37 this season.
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But despite the disappointing ending, the captain was proud of his team’s effort after the short postseason.
“I’m proud of this group of guys. We’ve been through lots of injuries, trade deadline, but we stick together and it showed the character of this group and that experience that the boys have this year it’s going to help,” Ovechkin said in his postgame media availability.
“No one believed in this group that we’re going to make the playoffs this year, but we stick together, we fight for it until the last game of the season, and we get the opportunity to play in the playoffs. We still have young guys who played in Hershey last year and they take a huge step forward and they take that experience and next year those guys are going to be much better.”
Ovi also made it clear he hopes to be back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which isn’t at all surprising.
“I hope I’m still going to get a couple chances [to play in the playoffs],” said the Stanley Cup champion.
It was another tough ending for Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals, but at the end of the day, the Rangers were just the better team. It’ll be intriguing to see if The Great Eight can lead this roster back to the dance in 2025.
