NHL top scorer Ovechkin’s record chase halted by broken leg

Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin, the NHL scoring leader who is approaching Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, will miss the next four to six weeks with a broken leg, the team announced Thursday.

The 39-year-old Russian left wing has 15 goals in 18 games, becoming the oldest player in NHL history to be the first to score 15 goals in a season.

Ovechkin, who had been listed as week-to-week, underwent further evaluation and doctors found he suffered a fractured left fibula in a leg-on-leg collision with Utah’s Jack McBain after 5:30 of the third period in a 6-2 Capitals road triumph on Monday.

Ovechkin’s hot start for the Capitals, 13-4-1, had put him within 27 goals of breaking Gretzky’s NHL career goals mark of 894. For now, the 20-year NHL veteran remains on 868 career NHL goals, all for Washington.

The injury setback will mark the longest absence of Ovechkin’s NHL career, the longest prior stretch for the Capitals captain coming when he missed six games with an upper body injury in November 2009.

Ovechkin has only missed 59 games in his NHL career, just 35 due to injury until now. His most games missed in a prior season were 11 and came in the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 campaign, seven for a lower-body injury and four while in Covid-19 protocols.

Under the team’s timetable, Ovechkin will miss at least 13 games and he could miss all 19 games remaining in 2024.

Ovechkin could be back as quickly as a December 20 home game against Carolina but might not return to the ice before a January 2 home contest with Minnesota.