Capitals Captain Alex Ovechkin Calls 2023-24 One Of The Most Challenging Seasons Of His Career: 'To Be Honest With You, It Was Tough'

ARLINGTON, V.A. — The 2023-24 season was something of a roller coaster for Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin.

Ovechkin, playing in his 19th NHL season, found himself facing hurdle after hurdle. Combining that with the pressure of a "GR8 Chase" in which he's tracking down Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record, along with adversity and questions of being able to get back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and he admits now to close out the year that it took a toll.

"I think it was (one of the more challenging seasons of my career)," he said.

Going back to the opening days of training camp, Ovechkin was confident in the group he had. Just like old times, he'd been reunited with center Nicklas Backstrom, while the team entered the year with a solid pool of centers and a new plan under head coach Spencer Carbery.

However, things would go downhill. After just eight games, Backstrom chose to step away from the game, leaving a major void to fill down the middle. More injuries struck, with T.J. Oshie and more pieces in and out of the lineup over the course of the year.

Months later, the center depth took another major blow; Evgeny Kuznetsov had been unable to find consistency, and following a second stint in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program, tension between him and the Capitals reached a boiling point. It led to him being waived and ultimately being traded off to the Carolina Hurricanes, while the Capitals also parted ways with 20-goal scorer Anthony Mantha and Joel Edmundson.

"You thought like, ‘Wow,' we’re going to have Kuzy, Backy, Stromer, three centers who can create something from nothing. But, Backy take a step back because of his injury. Then, we trade Kuzy, (which) was kind of a hard thing for this organization and for me," Ovechkin said. "But, how I said, it’s always a business and you always support the players."

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All the while, Ovechkin was struggling in his own right. Through the first 43 games of the season, he managed just eight goals, leaving critics wondering if Father Time had finally caught up to him and if the greatest scorer of his generation had finally run out of gas.

“Yeah, I was worried I would get traded, but thanks god I’m still here," he joked, but on a serious note, explained, "No, to be honest with you, it was tough with the whole situation, the injuries, line combinations. I was talking to Carbs all the time, and we just try to figure out like, 'Okay, what’s the best way for me to start doing my job and start to scoring goals, make some points?'... We have to figure out the system-wise, game-wise, and everything like that.”

Following his All-Star Break in Dubai, where he rode camels and hit "reset" with his family and friends, he came back in the second half and set the league on fire with 22 goals in his final 39 games to help propel D.C. into the playoffs.

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There, Washington would get swept at the hands of the Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers, who held Ovechkin scoreless in an NHL playoff series for the first time ever.

"It's always tough to lose a series... we just didn't score. Our line didn't score lots of goals, and blame on me. I didn't play well, so it kind of sucks that we played bad," Ovechkin said.

Carbery also noted that the entire year ultimately weighed too heavy on the captain.

"The second half of the year and especially the last, call it two weeks, where every game felt like life or death of our team... I feel like that took a lot out of him physically and mentally," Carbery admitted.

Reflecting on the year as a whole, Ovechkin saw the positives and was proud of his group, as the Capitals got back into the playoffs while No. 8 also moved with 42 goals of passing Wayne Gretzky on the NHL's all-time scoring list.

Despite that, he doesn't consider 2023-24 a "great year" by any means.

"I think it was just a period of time where you try to find the way to, ‘Okay, what do I have to do to get better on the ice? What do I have to do to find the game?'"

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At the end of the day, though, Ovechkin said he was happy to see what his team was able to accomplish, and as he fine-tunes things going into 2024-25, he hopes to see the organization continue to grow.

“Well, I’m proud of this group because of what we’ve been through since the beginning of the year, ups and downs, injuries. We still try find a way to be in the playoff race and be able to be in that kind of mix until the end of year," Ovechkin said. "It was a fun year. It was tough year for us, but it was a good year for the guys who played a full season and get that experience, get that type of playoff hockey game. For the future, it’s going to be very good for us and for this organization.”