Everything was ahead of him, all the promise and the pain, though he would not know it yet. He hadn't filled out, and his hair had yet to turn gray. Ovechkin looked so young then, back when McPhee uttered those words. Him and Backstrom, no one deserved it more." The way he came back this year, so focused to get a Cup. His entire family, the way they've raised him. He's a really, really high character, beautiful person. It was what they expected when they drafted him, when Capitals owner Ted Leonsis told Ovechkin that they were in this together - that they would win - before Ovechkin ever stepped on the ice for Washington, a promise that took 14 years to fulfill. Or as forward Devante Smith-Pelly said, "He's one of the greatest players ever, now his legacy is 100 percent cemented." Video: Looking back on the road to the Caps' Stanley Cup win You can have a different kind of conversation about him." … He gets this done and then he's viewed completely different, for sure. "Obviously a lot of personal success, but a lot of outside noise with everything else. "He's been through a lot," Washington forward Brett Connolly said before Game 5. He led them past the Cinderella story that was Vegas, to capture a moment many Capitals fans, and players, wondered if they would ever see. He led them past the Tampa Bay Lightning in his first chance at the Eastern Conference Final. He led them past Pittsburgh, past a raft of personal demons, in the Eastern Conference Second Round. He has become the leader the Capitals always thought he could be. "I'm sure there's great satisfaction as well to take that next step, especially when he became the captain he was looked upon as being a leader on their team. "Having been a great goal scorer, winning the scoring race, but not being able to take the next step before this year… I'm sure this is a great relief for him," said Hall of Fame defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, the first Europe-born captain to win the Cup, with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008. But now Ovechkin stands as the third Europe-born captain, and first NHL captain born in Russia, to hoist the Cup. 5, 2010, at 24 years old, an honor expected to be quickly followed by a championship of his own. Ovechkin had been elevated to captain on Jan. Video: Gm5: Ovechkin on winning the Stanley Cup Because though the greatness of Ovechkin's game had long been established, he continued to suffer in comparison to players like three-time Cup winner and Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby, players who had cemented their greatness with the ultimate prize.
Ovechkin had done everything he needed to do in the regular season, too, with 1,122 points (607 goals, 515 assists) in 1,003 career NHL games.īut that would never be enough, for either team or player. Time and again, the Capitals had done everything they needed to do in the regular season, including winning the Presidents' Trophy in 20. There was the missing line in his biography, filled in.
All the work and the hunger and the frustration, all the years in which he was questioned and blamed. That was all of it, there in three words. It was that last win, in which he scored his 15th goal of the playoffs, that earned him the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason's most valuable player, the accolades from his peers, and the right to void all the criticism that dogged him for years.Īnd that was it. He is, finally, the player he was always supposed to be.Īlex Ovechkin has erased the disappointing past and become the future that was planned for him, with the ring and the resume and the legend sealed with 16 wins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the last coming in Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday.
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And though he is no longer that young player full of promise, after more than 600 goals and 1,000 games and his 32nd year running out, he is something better. He was the future of the franchise, the player destined to bring a long-awaited, long-dreamed-of Stanley Cup to the Capitals, a team that had never been a champion. There was the beginning of a story that would take 14 years to write, 14 years of successes and failures, of enormous goal totals and shocking postseason exits, of heartbreak and history.
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