Washington’s home opener Wednesday will carry more weight than the usual first-night buzz. Alex Ovechkin, 41, is set to make his last home-opening appearance for the Capitals when Pittsburgh visits Capital One Arena at 7:30 p.m. ET, with HBO Max and TNT carrying the game.
Ovechkin said Monday that his 22nd NHL season will be his final one. He arrives at the finish line as the League’s all-time leading scorer with 929 goals, and as the captain who lifted Washington to its first Stanley Cup in 2018.
Quick facts
- Opponent: Pittsburgh Penguins
- Venue: Capital One Arena, Washington
- Faceoff: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET
- Broadcast: HBO Max and TNT
- Ovechkin’s NHL record: 929 career goals
- Capitals championship: Stanley Cup winner in 2018
There is no shortage of home-ice tape to run before puck drop. Ovechkin’s Washington career began with a jolt on Oct. 5, 2005, against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The first overall pick from the 2004 NHL Draft flattened defenseman Radoslav Suchy hard enough to knock out a pane of glass behind the net, then scored twice in a 3-2 Capitals win.
His playoff introduction at Capital One Arena came April 11, 2008, in Game 1 against Philadelphia. With the score tied late, Ovechkin broke up a Flyers exchange between Jaroslav Modry and Lasse Kukkonen, took the puck away in front and beat Martin Biron at 15:28 of the third for a 5-4 win. It was the first of his 77 postseason goals.
He produced one of his signature effort goals against Montreal on Feb. 18, 2009. Ovechkin won a race to a puck at center, worked around Roman Hamrlik and drove the net before Kyle Chipchura brought him down. From the ice, he managed to lift a shot past Carey Price to tie the game; Washington later took it 4-3 in a shootout.
That spring also delivered one of the most skilled goals of his career. In Game 5 against the New York Rangers on April 24, 2009, Ovechkin carried the puck up the left side, eluded Chris Drury, sent it between Derek Morris’ legs, recovered it with his skate and beat Henrik Lundqvist on a backhand while falling to his knees. The Capitals won 4-0 and eventually claimed the seven-game series.
Less than two weeks later, Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby turned a Capitals-Penguins playoff game into a personal scoring duel. Each captain recorded a hat trick in Washington’s 4-3 victory in Game 2 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Semifinals on May 4. Ovechkin’s review afterward was short: “Sick game.”
The biggest home goal came in the Stanley Cup Final. With the series against Vegas tied after two games in Nevada, Ovechkin scored 1:10 into the second period of Game 3 on June 2, 2018, poking a loose puck past Marc-Andre Fleury. Washington rode that opener to a 3-1 win, the first Cup Final game staged in the building, and went on to win the championship.
Capital One Arena also hosted two major stops in Ovechkin’s run through the record book. On Dec. 23, 2022, he scored twice against Winnipeg to move from 800 to 802 goals and pass Gordie Howe for second place in NHL history. He matched Howe with a wrist shot past David Rittich, then scored into an empty net with one minute remaining in a 4-1 win.
Both clubs stayed on the ice for the moment, and Gordie Howe’s son, Mark, appeared in a congratulatory video. Ovechkin’s sons, Ilya and Sergei, joined their father afterward and held the pucks from goals No. 801 and No. 802.
The final chase reached another packed-house peak on April 4, 2025, against Chicago. Ovechkin entered with 892 goals, two short of Wayne Gretzky’s mark, and scored once in the first period before tying Gretzky at 894 with a power-play goal in the third. Gretzky was in the building for Washington’s 5-3 victory, though the record-breaker waited two more days.
Wednesday’s opener brings Ovechkin back into the building where so many of those markers landed. Pittsburgh supplies a fitting opponent, too: another chapter in a rivalry that has featured playoff collisions, Crosby’s matching hat trick and some of the loudest nights the Capitals have known.
