Is Alex Ovechkin Too Old To Lead The Washington Capitals?

Unicorns are truly remarkable. Of course, I am not talking about the fictional horned horse that jumps over/through rainbows or whatever they do. I am talking about the athletes that cannot be matched in their time, or anybody’s time. Guys like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady. Pick your sport, pick your player. If your sport is hockey, Alex Ovechkin belongs in that conversation.

Ovechkin seems poised to break one of hockey’s most unbreakable records. He seems destined to score 895 goals which would move him past Wayne Gretzky’s record. To me, he doesn’t even have to pass Gretzky to be the greatest goal scorer of all time. Just watch games from both eras. No disrespect to any defense or goaltender from back in Gretzky’s day, the game is just different.

Ovechkin is a unicorn. A rare kind of athlete. The greatest of greats. The kind of great that only comes around so often. A lot of great players will come and go. They will remain team legends and go into their sport’s hall of fame. There are very few who well after they are done playing we are still trying to find “the next”.

Whenever Ovechkin hangs up his skates we will try to find the next goal scoring king. If someone comes into the NHL scoring a ton of goals we will say he is the next Alex Ovechkin, and can he pass his record.

Unfortunately, we are closer to Ovechkin retiring than most of us would like. We are now in our eighteenth season of watching this guy. We’re not watching 24-year-old Ovechkin, we are watching 37-year-old Ovechkin.

Has he slowed down? Well, no! In his 36-year old season he only scored 50 goals, added 40 assist for a total of 90 points. In terms of totals that was his best season since he was 24 where he scored 50 goals and 109 points. To start this season he has 3 goals and 6 points in 8 games played. Has he slowed down? Yeah, not really.

Several days ago I happened to watch a video. This video was actually an NBA video. The great crew of NBA on TNT were talking about the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have gotten off to a bad start. They get talked about a ton whether they are good or awful. One reason for that is a guy we talked about earlier, LeBron James.

Charles Barkley said something that really caught my attention. I’ll link the video right here so if you want to listen to it yourself you can. If you want to fast forward to the part that is relevant to us today go ahead and skip to about 3:45, that is when Barkley starts to make his point.

I am going to paraphrase Barkley here. He basically says that no one, in any sport, should be expected to be the best player on their team at age 38. In this case he is talking about LeBron and him being 37-years-old, soon to be 38. We have already said it, Ovechkin is 37.

He is also talking about Anthony Davis, and how he, at age 29 should be more aggressive and taking that spot as the Lakers best player. Does that sound familiar?

The Washington Capitals have a player that is roughly the same age. A player that has shown he has incredible talent that rarely brings it out of himself. For the Lakers it is 29-year-old Anthony Davis, for the Capitals it is 30-year-old Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Both of those players could be top of the league players that for whatever reason chose not to be. I am not an NBA expert, but we have all seen when Davis plays his very best he could be in MVP discussions in that league.

If you have followed me for any amount of time you will know what I think of Evgeny Kuznetsov. He is a player with an insane amount of talent. The amount of talent that if he gave it his all for the majority of the season we would talk about him with the best in this game. Sure, he is not on Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and maybe a few others level, but that next level is not too shabby.

If Kuznetsov gave 100% every game, or something close every game, he could be among the best this sport has to offer. But he doesn’t. He is happy playing second fiddle. He’s content to let Alex Ovechkin be the best player on the team. When you’re 25 and Ovechkin is 32 that is more than fine to do.

Professional sports is mostly dominated by guys 25-33 or somewhere in there. Ovechkin may be one of those unicorns, but he is way past that now. He may be “just” four years past those years but four years is a long, long time in pro sports. If you are blessed to have a long career, four years could easily be a quarter of your career.

Is Ovechkin too old? No, he’s not. Even in the Capitals most recent game at the time of writing this against the Dallas Stars I thought he looked good. During that game, a 2-0 shutout loss to the Stars, he ended up hitting two posts. An inch or two in another direction and he has two goals and single handedly forces overtime. He still has skill, talent and the ability.

When I heard that NBA on TNT clip I just had a woah moment. I knew what I was listening to and somehow my brain went to a completely different place. I knew I was listing to a clip talking about the LA Lakers. I felt like I was listening to someone talk about the Washington Capitals.

What are the differences? Basketball is not hockey. Mostly, if you get a couple of stars in hoops, you’re a contender. In hockey, just a couple of stars means nothing. Hockey is more of a team sport in that way.

But the similarities are there. LeBron is still great. Ovechkin is still great. The Lakers are just fully bad, the Capitals, at least in my eyes, are trying their very hardest to hold on. Both teams are led by an athlete this is much closer to forty than they are to thirty. Both teams have a guy who is in that prime age. Both of those prime aged guys could bring a lot more, but do not.

Is Ovechkin too old to lead the Capitals? No, he isn’t. Is LeBron too old to lead the Lakers? Again, not for him. These guys are what we said they are. They’re unicorns. They are something you rarely see.

Should they be leading their teams? I would have to agree with Charles Barkley. You shouldn’t be asking a 37-year-old to still be your best player. Especially when you have a guy who could, or probably should take that role.