Alex Ovechkin to miss tonight and All Star Game due to COVID protocol
Just hours before the Washington Capitals take on the Edmonton Oilers, the Caps announced that Alex Ovechkin will be unavailable tonight and All Star weekend due to testing positive for COVID-19. Under the new CDC guidelines, Ovechkin will probably have to quarantine for five days and have a series of negative tests in order to get back in the action.
Ovechkin was voted as the captain of the Metropolitan Division for the weekend’s festivities in Las Vegas. Replacing him will be Tom Wilson (more on that later). Ovechkin received 30.4 percent of the fan vote, the most among players. This is the third straight All Star Game he’s missing though unlike previous years, a virus played his hand this time.
Ovechkin has 29 goals and 29 assists through 46 games this season. He’s a 12 time All Star and participated in it seven times. There were no details earlier as the team didn’t have a morning skate. Samantha Pell of The Washington Post did note that Ovechkin’s wife Nastya was flying from Moscow to D.C. while he tested positive and the couple was supposed to go to Vegas while their sons Sergei and Ilya remained in Russia.
Today was the last day NHL All Star participants were subject to testing before flying out to Vegas. The Caps recalled Brett Leason from the taxi squad which will likely replace Ovechkin in the lineup. Like I noted earlier, there was no morning skate so it’s unclear what the lines will look like at the moment.
Ovechkin was the last remaining Caps player standing who had played in every game up until this point. With injuries and a virus running rampant throughout the world, the Caps have tried their hardest to focus on the task of the regular season at hand. They will look to build off their current two game winning streak. You can catch the game tonight at 7 on TNT.