Alex Ovechkin left the Washington Capitals’ first skate of their 2025-26 training camp early to be evaluated for a lower-body injury, according to the team.
The exact nature of Ovechkin’s apparent injury was not immediately evident, as the 40-year-old winger did not participate in Thursday’s skate test. Ovechkin and some other veterans reportedly completed their tests prior to the start of this year’s camp.
Ovechkin recently returned to the DC area from spending most of the summer in his native Russia, rejoining his teammates at an informal skate on September 9. This is the second year in a row that he has started training camp nursing an injury.
Head coach Spencer Carbery called Ovechkin “nicked up” this time last year, and earlier Russian reporting had revealed Ovechkin missed Sergei Mozyakin’s farewell KHL game due to a minor knee injury. Ovechkin then went on to play in three preseason games, taking a maintenance day between the first and second games. He later broke his left leg in November, forcing him out of 16 regular-season games.
The Capitals captain is just three goals away from becoming the first in league history to record 900 markers in a career. He is also just nine games away from playing in 1,500 games, all with the Capitals.
While Ovechkin sat out, the rest of the team made their way up and down the ice at Capitals MedStar Iceplex. Players were separated into three different groups with familiar names like Pierre-Luc Dubois, Nic Dowd, and Brandon Duhaime mixed in with prospects and AHL veterans.
The newly-agreed collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHLPA, ratified on July 8, bans skating fitness tests after this season.
The physical exams typically put skaters through conditioning exercises for coaches to determine the level of endurance and strength particular players possess ahead of the regular season. Former Capitals head coach Barry Trotz famously had a creative way of measuring his roster’s fitness each year.
The Capitals are set for three days of camp before kicking off their preseason slate of games against the Boston Bruins on September 21.
