Chris Clark had established himself as a versatile NHL forward when he was traded from Calgary to Washington in the summer of 2005.
The lockout that erased the 2004-05 NHL season was over, and Clark reported to the nation’s capital ready to get back to work. Washington was in rebuilding mode after its failed attempt to build a winner around high-priced free agent signing Jaromir Jagr, and Clark arrived to serve as a veteran presence on a team that was going to showcase young players and try to build a winner from within.
The centerpiece of that strategy? A young Russian wing named Alex Ovechkin, who had been selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2004 NHL Draft. An electric goal-scoring talent with Russia’s national junior teams, Ovechkin headed to Washington that summer accompanied by plenty of hype but also a curiosity in how his game would translate to the NHL level.
It didn’t take Clark long to take notice.
“I really didn’t know much about him,” said Clark, the Blue Jackets current director of player personnel. “I knew he was the first overall pick and all that. I always got there early so I could skate with the guys. He came in a little bit early as well.
“You knew there was something there. But you didn’t know 20 years later it was something like this, that’s for sure.”
Of course, if you’ve even paid a little bit of attention to hockey over the intervening two decades, you know how Ovechkin turned out. Today against the New York Islanders, he scored his 895th career NHL goal, breaking Wayne Gretzky’s seemingly unbreakable record for the most scored in league history.
Ovechkin has long been a legend, but now his name has sits alone at the top of the mountain. There have been plenty of dynamic, superstar hockey players with skill, but none have had the 39-year-old’s combination of talent, consistency, luck and perseverance to reach this lofty height.
And it all started on Oct. 5, 2005, at what was then known the MCI Center in the District of Columbia’s Chinatown. The opponent in his first NHL game? The Columbus Blue Jackets.
How It All Began
There were 16,325 fans in attendance that night, short of capacity, a sign of just how far the league had to go to reestablish its bond with fans after a lost season as well as the lowly expectations for the Caps. When Washington left the ice at the end of the 2003-04 season, they had compiled a 23-46-10-3 record, with their 59 points tying for the second fewest in the NHL with Chicago, one point better than Pittsburgh.
The Caps won the draft lottery, though, and took Ovechkin with the first overall pick ahead of fellow Russian standout Evgeni Malkin. There wasn’t much debate, as Ovechkin’s exploits – he made Russia’s top-level league at age 16, had 23 goals in 14 games at the World U-18 Championships and 11 in 12 games at the World Juniors – made him the consensus top choice.
He played for Dynamo Moskva during the lockout – scoring 13 goals in 37 games – before making his NHL debut, but it didn’t take Ovechkin long to show he belonged. Just 28 seconds after Dan Fritsche gave Columbus a 1-0 lead in the second period, Ovechkin floated into a soft spot of open ice at the top of the slot and one-timed a pass from Dainius Zubrus past goalie Pascal Leclaire for his first NHL goal at 7:21 of the middle frame.
Ovechkin immediately raised both arms in celebration, but his night was far from over. Fritsche scored his second goal of the game a few minutes later, and Ovechkin tied it right up at 11:51, skating down from what would become his customary spot in the left circle on the power play and burying the rebound of a Jeff Halpern shot.
Just one game in, Ovechkin had lived up to the hype, and it didn’t stop from there. He started his career with an eight-game point streak, scoring six goals in that span.
“We got a chance early to see Ovi play,” said Rick Nash, who was on the ice for Ovechkin’s first goal. “You could tell right away that there was something special. With him being (20) at the time and stepping in the NHL and having the impact, it wasn’t like most (20)-year-olds that step in. You had that feeling.”
A Career Unlike Any Other
By the time Ovechkin finished his debut season, he had scored 52 goals among his 106 points, running away with the Calder Trophy given to the NHL’s rookie of the year – he received 124 of 129 first-place votes to beat out Sidney Crosby, who had his own 102-point campaign – and finishing sixth in the Hart Trophy voting for MVP.
The numbers were as consistent as they were stupefying from there, with Ovechkin scoring 46 times as a sophomore and leading the league for the first time in year three with 62 tallies. He would go on to top the NHL goal-scoring chart nine times and has led the Caps to the playoffs 16 times; he was also a force of nature on the ice, routinely finishing seasons with more than 200 hits.
The excitement he generated with his play was equaled by the exuberance he showed after goals, whether he put them in the net or his teammates did.
“I talk about this a lot with him; it wasn’t about him scoring, it was about the team scoring or the team having success,” said Clark, who would become the Capitals’ captain in 2006-07 before being traded to the Blue Jackets in 2009-10. “So when he did score, or when it wasn’t him scoring and it was somebody else on the ice, it was almost like, ‘I gotta know where he is, because he’s going to jump on me.’ You had to be ready for it – he was 230, 240 pounds jumping on you, but he was just as excited for everybody else to have success as he was for himself.”
That didn’t always go over well in a staid NHL culture that at the time was much more traditional than it is today. It was a league run by veterans with a code that that focused on not showing up opponents, and Clark was in an older environment where that was very much the case in Calgary. When he arrived in Washington, with a much younger team and a budding superstar ready to celebrate every accomplishment, it was a different world.
“It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, which is crazy to think about, especially in this day and age,” Clark said. “But it’s a traditional sport. It’s come a long way in the last 20 years, but for him to do those things, it bucked the trend. I was the same way – ‘I scored a goal, I’ve scored before. Go line up, let’s try to get another one.’
“I wasn’t old old, I was kind of in the middle of my career, and it’s something where it was fun for me to have that side, something different like that.”
While Ovechkin took some getting used to for the league and its players, his performances and the joy he found in the game were a boon for hockey’s popularity. He also had the perfect counterbalance in Crosby. Both were destined for greatness, but different shades of it; one wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers, while the other played with understated elegance. They became natural rivals, often running into one another in memorable playoff duels.
“The league was almost at a crossroads,” Nash said. “I feel like the NHL was starving for that new star power, and you couldn’t think of two bigger names. The buzz around it was incredible. Some of the matchups they’ve had over the years, it’s been fun to be a competitor against them, but it’s also fun to be a fan and watch and see what they’ve done.”
Of course, Crosby’s team success came much quicker than Ovechkin’s, with the Penguins winning Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016 and 2017. While Ovechkin’s play was the epitome of consistency, the Capitals faced frustrating playoff exit after frustrating playoff exit, failing to reach the Stanley Cup Final until 2018.
That year, Washington fell into a 2-0 hole in the opening round of the playoffs vs. Columbus, but with their backs against the wall, the Capitals roared back to win four straight games to eliminate the Blue Jackets. They then vanquished the Penguins, downed the Lightning and romped to a Cup victory over the expansion Golden Knights to give Ovechkin his first Stanley Cup.
His celebrations at the time were legendary, and the win felt like the ultimate validation of a career unlike any other.
“He’s got a team-first mentality,” said CBJ head coach Dean Evason, who was an assistant in Washington for the first seven years of Ovechkin’s career. “To see him and that franchise win the Stanley Cup there a few years ago and to see him doing what he’s doing and with the class that he’s doing it with, yeah, it’s exciting.”
A Legendary Impact
As Ovechkin was piling up goals and redefining what it meant to be a power forward in the NHL, a young kid in Barnaul, Russia, was watching.
Kirill Marchenko was just 5 years old when Ovechkin made his NHL debut and 22 when he made his own, meaning he’s watched Ovechkin first as a hero and now one of his peers, and Marchenko has made no bones about what the Caps superstar has meant to him over the years.
“He is my favorite player of all time,” Marchenko said. “When I grow up, he was the guy for me, the best of the best.”
When Marchenko first arrived in the NHL, he hadn’t met Ovechkin, but that changed after his callup to the Blue Jackets when the two were among a group of players went out to dinner in Columbus. Marchenko has since become a dynamic scorer in his own right, topping 30 goals this season for the first time, but he still speaks of Ovechkin in reverential tones.
“Yeah, I meet with him, but we have 14 years difference,” Marchenko said. “I am real shy. I can’t speak a lot with him, but I really respect him, and he’s a really good guy. He’s always asking, ‘How are you?’ and I want to say thank you for that. It’s really nice for me.”
Ovechkin, in many ways, remains a study in contrasts. He seemed to want to score more than anyone else, yet he always celebrated his teammates’ successes with the same gusto. He was one of the best players of his era, yet he had to wait so long for the ultimate team prize. He has aged better than almost anyone in NHL history, yet his fondness for Subway sandwiches and a beer or two has become part of his aura.
It all comes back to him being his authentic self, which has earned respect and admiration throughout the league.
“I always make time to see him after games or in pregame skates, and it’s amazing the transition from young teenager to father and husband,” Clark said. “He’s a grownup now. The last 10 years since I’ve been out and seeing him, the hair is getting a lot grayer, he’s a lot more mature. He’s asking me about my family, he’s talking about his family and stuff like that. As players do, they transform from young teenagers full of life to grown up and mature.”
The constant has been his ability to score goals. Despite fracturing his fibula just over a month into this season – his first major injury in his entire career – Ovechkin’s record-breaking goal was his 42nd of the year, making him the second-oldest NHL player to reach 40 goals in a season. Even with all the talented players who have come into the league over the years, Ovechkin is third in the NHL this season in goals.
For those who have been through the grind, Ovechkin’s longevity makes him a marvel. Indeed, the Russian machine never breaks.
“Most players, myself included, your body just gives out on you,” Clark said. “You can’t do it anymore because of the wear and tear, but he’s still able to do it. That’s why you can’t predict anything because you need the talent, you need the teammates, and I’m not going to say it’s luck, but you need something to go your way to play that long. It is freakish.”
Evason has been around the NHL for Ovechkin’s career, first on his side and then facing him on the opposing bench. His respect for the Great 8 is informed by what he saw behind closed doors and on the hockey world’s biggest stages, and the CBJ head coach can’t help but be impressed by what he has seen.
“Him and I both started at the same time,” Evason said. “For eight years, I watched him conduct himself not only as a hockey player but a person and a teammate. Obviously the entire hockey world’s excited about what he’s doing, but to have an inside look at what he did was pretty special.”
