Alex Ovechkin is going out on his own terms, and he wanted his teammates to hear it from him first. The Washington Capitals captain and the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer announced Monday morning that the 2026-27 season will be his last, closing out a 22-year career that fundamentally rewrote the league’s record book.
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Ovechkin gathered the team to deliver the news in person rather than let it leak out.
“This is going to be my last year,” Ovechkin told his teammates. “For me, for my family, it’s very important for you guys to know first. Yeah, it’s sad, but it is what it is. We have an unbelievable team this year, and 82 games left. Let’s make a play, let’s have fun, and enjoy the moment. And it seems like yesterday I was here my first year, and right now this is my 22nd year, and this goes like this. So yeah, it’s hard, but let’s enjoy it and let’s do some special thing this year, all right? Thank you.”
The Capitals also released a separate written statement from Ovechkin explaining the timing of the announcement, made before Washington’s home opener specifically so he could thank the people who shaped his career while he still had the season ahead of him to do it.
“My family and I decided this summer that this will be my final year in the NHL,” Ovechkin said. “I love this game so much, but I know in my heart it’s the right decision. It was important for me to make this announcement before our first home game, so I have the chance to thank all the people around the game, everyone who has been so important to me and my family and helped me through good times and tough losses,’ he added.
Alex Ovechkin announced to his teammates this morning that this season will be his final in the NHL
Alex Ovechkin’s Illustrious Career In Numbers
The resume he’s closing the book on is almost without precedent. Ovechkin, who turned 41 on Sept. 17, enters his final season with 929 regular-season goals, a record he claimed outright when he passed Wayne Gretzky’s long-standing mark of 894 in April 2025.
He has also added 759 assists for 1,688 career points across 1,575 games, all with Washington.
Beyond the career goals record, Ovechkin sits first in NHL history with 331 power-play goals, 141 game-winning goals, 27 overtime goals, 476 road goals, 154 game-opening goals, 155 game-tying goals and 297 go-ahead goals. He is also tied for the most 50-goal seasons with nine, along with 14 40-goal seasons and 20 30-goal seasons.
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July 2, 2024: Since drafting Steven Stamkos in 2008, the Tampa Bay Lightning are fifth in the NHL in regular-season victories and second in playoff victories. Stamkos 555 goals are second only to Alex Ovechkin over those 16 seasons. – ZUMAm67_ 20240702_zaf_m67_022 Copyright: xIvyxCeballox
His trophy cabinet includes a Stanley Cup from 2018, when he also won Conn Smythe honors as playoff MVP.
He also has a record nine Rocket Richard trophies as the league’s top goal scorer, three Hart Trophies, three Ted Lindsay Awards, an Art Ross Trophy, and a Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.
This season also makes Ovechkin part of a very small club. Along with Sidney Crosby, he joins Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Stan Mikita and Steve Yzerman as the only players in NHL history to play 22 seasons with a single franchise.
At the start of this season, Ovechkin also passed Walter Johnson, who played 21 seasons for the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927, as the longest-tenured athlete in the history of Washington, D.C. professional sports.
But there are still lots of milestones which he can achieve in this farewell season.
Records He Still Can Break
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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – OCTOBER 02: Alex Ovechkin #8 of the Washington Capitals looks on during the first period of the game against the Carolina Hurricanesat Lenovo Center on October 02, 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Combining his regular-season and playoff totals, Ovechkin is currently 11 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record for most combined goals (regular season + playoffs) of 1,016.
He’s also just four assists from passing Nicklas Backstrom (762) for the most assists in franchise history, and 12 points from 1,700 for his career.
Not only that, but Ovechkin is also 36 points away from passing Mario Lemieux for ninth on the NHL’s all-time scoring list, and one 20-goal season from tying Gordie Howe’s NHL record of 22.
He is also 25 games away from 1,600 career games and 33 games from passing Patrick Marleau (1,607) for the second-most games ever played with a single franchise.
To reach 1,000 regular-season goals, he would need 71 more goals over his final season. Although it seems like a big ask at 41 years old, not one anyone around the league is ruling out given who’s chasing it.
This season, he has started slowly on the scoresheet, with Ovechkin posting one assist and no goals through his first two games, including Washington’s game in Tampa on October 3.
Capitals’ Head Coach and Players’ Reactions To The News
The timing and the date of announcement carried their own significance.
Ovechkin made the retirement announcement 21 years to the day after his NHL debut. His final home game is already on the calendar, too, which will be on Sunday, April 4, 2027, against his rival Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, to call a fitting closing to a rivalry that helped define the league for two decades.
The reaction inside the Capitals organization made clear this is being treated as more than a routine farewell season. Head coach Spencer Carbery, speaking to reporters, framed Ovechkin’s discomfort with the attention against how much the moment means to everyone else around the league.
“He is such an important part of this sport’s history and for this generation. I think there is part of him that’s understanding that people want to say goodbye,” Carbery said.
Teammate Dylan Strome spoke to what it means just to share a locker room with him.
“It’s been an absolute honor to suit up beside eight,” Strome said.
Tom Wilson, who has played alongside Ovechkin for over a decade, put the captain’s place in Washington hockey as simply as possible.
“When you think of the Capitals and hockey in Washington, it’s Ovi,” Wilson said.
“When you think of the Capitals and hockey in Washington, it’s Ovi.” Tom Wilson speaks to the media to discuss Alex Ovechkin’s legacy in the DMV and throughout the hockey world. #ALLCAPS | @MedStarHealth
Ovechkin’s impact in Washington was never confined to the ice, either.
The Ovechkin Effect
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COLUMBUS, OHIO – APRIL 14: Washington Capitals fans, wearing Alex Ovechkin #8 of the Washington Capitals jerseys, arrive for the game between the Washington Capitals and the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on April 14, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
Since his 885th career goal, he’s donated to THE GR8 CHASE for Victory Over Cancer for every goal he’s scored, with Monumental Sports & Entertainment matching each contribution, a campaign that has raised more than $256,000 toward a pediatric cancer research grant that will bear his name through The V Foundation and Hockey Fights Cancer.
He has also served as an ambassador for the American Special Hockey Association since 2014, funding ice costs for 136 adaptive hockey teams nationwide and donating season tickets to ASHA families through his Ovi’s 8’s program every year since 2006.
As per the Capitals, youth and adult hockey participation in the Washington, D.C., region has grown by more than 220 percent since Ovechkin’s rookie season, with girls’ and women’s participation up by 225 percent. The organization has named it “The Ovechkin Effect.”
Starting in November, the Capitals plan to mark the eighth of every remaining month of the season with a new initiative tied to causes Ovechkin has supported throughout his career.
Between now and his final game in Pittsburgh’s building next April, Ovechkin and the Capitals have a full season to try to add one more chapter worth remembering on the scoresheet and well beyond it.