The NHL schedule was made with a sense of ceremony — or at least a sense of potential television ratings. So just as the Capitals played their final home game last season against the Penguins, and just as the Capitals will play their final home game this season against the Penguins, the Capitals played their first home game of 2026-27 against the Penguins on Wednesday night.
Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been inextricably linked for the past 21 seasons and remain so for season 22. It’s been a long time — long enough to cover more than half their lives, long enough to encompass the entire physical existence of a few teammates, long enough to soften a fierce rivalry into a mutual respect. The cumulative weight of those years was hard to ignore on Wednesday.
It was the 101st meeting between Ovechkin and Crosby, but it was not one in which either star did much to control the action. The Capitals won, 5-3, in a game that showcased their depth.
“You get off the ice, and there’s a lot of talent coming on after you,” said Capitals forward Tom Wilson. “It’s a good feeling.”
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Eight different Capitals recorded a point on Wednesday, including big summer acquisitions Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou.
That group did not include Ovechkin, but his presence shaped much of the night anyway. (That impact included a smattering of protesters outside Capital One Arena voicing their frustration with Ovechkin’s recent appearance in a political ad supporting the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin.) It was the first game since 41-year-old Ovechkin announced that he would retire at the end of the season. He spent last year as the subject of permanent speculation. There will be none of that for 2026-27: He knows this is goodbye, and his teammates and fans know it, too. That was impossible to escape in his final home opener.
Fans chanted for Ovechkin before the pregame introductions. His young sons, Sergei and Ilya, were given the job of reading off his name and jersey number. (Ovechkin, rarely one for sentimentality, yielded a little bit here: “It was a pretty cool moment,” he said. Wilson, his most established teammate, was more effusive: “You got chills watching him come out. You’ve just got to try and soak it all in.”) The crowd thrummed with anticipation every time he got the puck in the left circle, waiting for the captain to go to work in his office and give them a reason to explode.
Ovechkin shot twice but did not score. His role has shifted in the twilight of his career: Ovechkin averaged just 17 minutes, 27 seconds of ice time last year, the lowest he’d ever recorded with the Capitals, and that number has been lower this year. Ovechkin played 14 minutes, 5 seconds on Wednesday after logging even fewer minutes in each of the first two games of the season. It’s early in the year, of course, and Ovechkin did not play in the preseason while managing some mild injuries. But his job is clearly different than what it used to be. Most notably on Wednesday, when a 5-on-4 became a 5-on-3, Ovechkin came off the ice.
“I’m not going to say that he doesn’t want to be out there, and he’s like, ‘Yay. Thanks, Carbs, for calling me off,’” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Like, that’s not how it is. But he also is understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish as a team and the great players that he has around him.”
Ovechkin demurred when questioned about his approach.
“For me personally, I just take it game by game,” he said.
Which, incidentally, will include three more games against Crosby and the Penguins.
Some more notes from the win:
- The Tuch–Pierre-Luc Dubois–Wilson line continues to shine. All three members scored on Wednesday, and Dubois added one assist while Wilson added two. “They were outstanding tonight, right from their first shift,” Carbery said. He was keen on matching them up against Pittsburgh’s top line as much as possible to maximize the clash of Dubois on Crosby: “I really wanted [Dubois] to play against [Crosby] as much as I could.” Crosby finished as a -4 for the first time in four years.
- Washington was 1-for-6 on the power play on Wednesday. (They are now 2-for-10 on the man advantage for the season.) But there have been real signs of improvement here — especially on the second unit, which produced that goal on Wednesday, with Ryan Leonard assisted by Jordan Kyrou and Cole Hutson. “Everyone’s moving really well,” Leonard said. “I think we’re doing a really good job reading off each other.” Their puck movement has been notably better from last year.
- Wednesday kicked off a stretch of eight home games in three weeks for the Caps. They will go on the road for one game in Raleigh next week against the Hurricanes but will otherwise be entirely at home until the end of October.
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