Ovechkin’s chase, dynamic goalies: What late-arriving Capitals fans need to know

The Washington Commanders’ improbable, unexpected run for the Super Bowl is over, but another local franchise has been busy putting together a magical season of its own.

The Washington Capitals are leading their conference after being pegged as a rebuilding squad during the offseason. Sound familiar?

Here’s everything Capitals fans need to know for the remainder of the season, from Alex Ovechkin’s “Gr8 Chase” to the playoff picture.

Twenty to go

The story of Washington’s season, as has been commonly the case for 20 years, is Ovechkin. The 39-year-old opened the 2024-25 campaign 42 goals short of Wayne Gretzky’s record.

The Russian had reached 42 or more goals in 13 of his previous 19 seasons, but most analysts assumed Father Time would start catching up and Ovechkin would need an extra year to pass Gretzky.

That may not be the case.

Even after missing six weeks with a broken fibula, Ovechkin still leads the team in goals with 22. The Great Eight now sits just 20 goals shy of The Great One.

“Everywhere we go, people are going crazy,” winger Tom Wilson told Sportsnet. “It doesn’t matter what city we are in; everywhere he goes, everybody stands up instantly with their phones when he walks by. It’s rock star [stuff] right now.”

The extra focus on one player isn’t a detriment, according to those in Washington’s locker room every day. Nobody is more supportive of Ovechkin’s chase than his coaches and teammates.

“It actually helps our guys; it energizes our group when he’s going and gets a couple early scoring chances or even scores early in the game,” coach Spencer Carbery told reporters in Calgary on Tuesday of the chase. “The lift that it gives our group as a whole is incredible, and I can feel it standing behind our group.”

At his current scoring pace, Ovechkin would break the goal record during the final week of the regular season.

Dynamic duo in net

But Ovechkin isn’t alone on the ice for the Capitals. Even with the captain sidelined due to injury, the team stayed afloat and posted a 10-5-1 record while Ovechkin recovered.

That unexpected success was largely driven by the goaltending tandem of Charlie Lindgren and Logan Thompson, who have played like one of the top duos in the league this season.

The pair have split starting duties throughout the season, with Lindgren flashing a handful of highlight-worthy plays like a diving save against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. His underlying stats are nothing to scoff at either — Lindgren has maintained a .904 save percentage while allowing just 2.51 goals per game.

Thompson, who the Capitals added via an offseason trade with the Vegas Golden Knights, has played at an even higher level.

The 27-year-old has recorded just two regulation losses in his 28 starts while saving a league-best 92.7% of shots against him and allowing 2.05 goals per game, the second-best mark in the league.

The Capitals rewarded Thompson with a six-year, $35 million contract extension for his efforts.

“We feel confidence that those guys are going to make a save in a huge moment,” Ovechkin told reporters on Monday. “They’re going to keep us in a game. That’s given us an opportunity to be able to stay in the game.”

Top of the table

Fifty games into the NHL season, the Capitals find themselves atop the league’s standings. A seven-point lead over the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference gives Washington a clear shot at a top seed when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin in April.

Like the upstart Commanders, the Capitals weren’t expected to be a title contender when the season began. The prevailing theory for analysts was that Washington’s quick trip to the playoffs last year was a fluke, citing the squad’s minus-37 point differential.

A busy offseason that featured the addition of Thompson and center Pierre-Luc Dubois was a promising step in the right direction, but most experts weren’t convinced it’d be enough. The Athletic’s NHL predictor gave the Capitals an 18% chance to make the playoffs again.

“They’ll be in the mix, but they probably won’t be a strong contender to make it. …” the site’s experts wrote. “This team has a ceiling that likely traps them somewhere in the middle.”

That ceiling hasn’t limited Washington through the first half of the season. Ovechkin and the Capitals are primed to contend for the President’s Trophy during the final stretch of the campaign.

“It’s just the tightest group I’ve ever been a part of, and the chemistry is so good in the dressing room, which is why I think we play so hard for each other and the coaches,” Thompson told Sportsnet. “That’s a big reason why we’ve had a lot of success. We just don’t quit.”