A heavy decision awaits Alex Ovechkin over the coming summer.
Now 40 years old and a certain future Hall-of-Famer in the sport, he faces a choice between continuing to play and stepping away for good — his half-decade contract in Washington with the Capitals set to lapse, officially, when July 1 arrives.
While the hockey world holds out for any sign of which way he's leaning, the only real recourse is reading into the proverbial tea leaves — and what they seem to hint is that, on home soil, Ovi is keeping himself in fine condition.
From the moment he touched back down in Russia this past Wednesday, the winger has turned up on camera again and again courtesy of Gus, among his tightest friends, getting a workout in via padel, the tennis-and-squash hybrid contested within a walled-in court.
📸 Instagram, via @gus\_gr8
Closing out the week, partnering alongside Nastya Ovechkina, his wife, the captain squared off against a pairing of Ksenia Borodina — an actress as well as a TV presenter, both hats worn in Russia — plus Maxim Kazantsev, who works in business, a session that surfaced over on Borodina's own Instagram feed.
Instagram, via @borodylia
Nearer the start of that same week, the captain had also stepped onto the court next to Stanislav Ishchenko, a pro whose career peaked in Russia's leading minor circuits.
📸 Instagram, via @gus\_gr8
In each of the photos, a Capitals cap in navy blue rides atop his head.
These workouts come on the heels of a 2025-26 campaign — career season number 21 for him in the circuit — during which the club's top scorer was Ovechkin, his 32 goals coming across a full slate of 82 contests, a haul that pushed his all-time NHL goal-scoring mark up to a total of 929.
During the press availability on his exit-interview day, the captain indicated he felt reasonably confident the game he'd just played wouldn't end up being his final one, though he spelled out the terms under which he'd return. Coming back, he made clear, would have to amount to a genuine choice, the leading consideration being a club positioned to reach the postseason and chase a championship. Matters tied to family or to his health carried weight too, he noted, yet what ranked above all else for him was the squad's prospects.
He added that growing older has pushed him to dig in even more during the months between seasons so his level holds up. The whole thing, he said, hinges on the way he looks after his physique and the way he prepares. Skating for roughly 25 to 30 minutes amid the schedule is enjoyable enough, whereas summertime calls for hard grinding to round into form. Such effort comes easily at age 20, he observed, but by 40 the climb steepens with each passing year. His plan was to talk things through with Pavel, who serves as his own trainer, weigh where he stands, and ready himself from there.
Ovi having yet to settle the matter, TJ Oshie — once his teammate in Washington — has voiced confidence that the former captain he played beside would lace them up again, even as Aliaksei Protas, still on the roster, has suggested Ovechkin could go on competing at the top level into his 50s should he want to. The Capitals' front office, for its part, has said in public that where things land is wholly up to the player.
Should a return materialize, one striking milestone lies within his grasp: sitting at 1,006, the winger trails by 10 the mark of 1,016 held by Wayne Gretzky, a gap that, if closed, would split the league's career goal-scoring record — a count that folds postseason tallies together with regular-season ones.