Is Alex Ovechkin showing signs of slowing down?

Anthony Petrielli and Nick Ashbourne discuss Alex Ovechkin's performance in the early portion of the season and how long it will take him to pass Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record. Watch to the full episode on our Yahoo Sports NHL YouTube channel.

Video Transcript

NICK ASHBOURNE: Coming into the season, I think a lot of people would acknowledge that Alex Ovechkin is not the player he used to be. Right. This is a guy approaching 40. It's not fair to expect him to be as dynamic as he was in his younger years.

But the goals continue to come, right. You're talking about 92 goals over the previous two seasons. And so people began to treat the idea that he would break Gretzky's goal record as kind of inevitable. Like it's going to take-- whether it's going to take two years or three years, like this is a place he's going to get to.

And then at the beginning, of this season the Capitals look just dreadful. He has a couple of games in a row with no shots, which is totally unprecedented for him. And the question is starting to creep back in, right. Like is he going to have the juice for this.

And, you know, it always sounds silly because this-- he's been doubted before. Like there's been moments where people thought that he was falling back to Earth. And it didn't look that way. But in this year, Washington looks like one of the worst teams on the ice, like in the NHL.

We look at some of the tracking data. He's just not moving as quickly as he used to. The shot's not as hard as it used to be. And he had this game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday as part of the Frozen Frenzy. And he got like a million shots. He got 14 shots in the game.

And so you could take that if you didn't watch the game and say, oh, you know, Ovi's back. Like he's got the nose for the net or whatever. But if you watched that game, you weren't impressed with Ovechkin. Like he totally blew a penalty shot. Like even the breakaway that started that was not particularly good. He got a lot of not very dangerous looks on the power play that Joseph Woll pretty much squared up.

And I came away from that game thinking like, yeah, maybe this guy can put a bunch of shots on net. Maybe it's not going to be difficulty getting his attempts. But I'm starting to feel a little differently about Ovi than I did entering the year.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: So I think it's a bit of a spider web to untangle. So the first and foremost, I'll say off the top, I still think Ovechkin's going to get the record. And the reason I think that is because he very much seems to me like a guy that will play as long as humanly possible to get that record. Like if he's getting 10 goals at. 15 goals.

NICK ASHBOURNE: I mean, he could go Weegar mode. Right. Like it doesn't have to happen in the next two years.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Yeah. Whereas Sidney Crosby, for example, strikes me as a guy that like once he's not at a certain level, he's going to hang him up. Because he's not going to want to play to such a low standard, unless he's like somehow like a part of like a-- it would not be on Pittsburgh, but it would be a player lower on the depth chart on like a Cup contender, if you wanted to chase rings.

But he has three. Like I, like Sid very much to me seems once he's like done, he's done. Ovechkin I think would hang on to every last second of it. The reason I think that's a spider web is to your point, Washington, they're not a good team. Like they're stuck in purgatory of transitioning from the old guard to the new guard.

And like the new guard is not Dylan Strome and Sonny Milano. Right. Like like they need like a real one. Like they're going to actually have to rebuild. And to do that, they're going to have to be bad. And they're going to have to trade away all their vets at some point or at minimum clear the deck of them, and figure it out.

All-- like they're going to have to start from scratch. Like there's not a ton there. So are they going to stomach being bad and just going through the Ovechkin goal race for some like three to five years right now. Or at some point in that process, are they going to say, like we want to build and like get back to winning. Like are fans going to stop coming? Like that rink looked empty.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah. That's fair. I mean, it's only so fun to watch this. Right. Like it's fun to watch it the moment he gets really close to it. But for the year and a bit, two years, three years where he's crawling towards it potentially. Like that's not fun to watch.

And like this Washington team, is yeah, it's a bad team right now. It's sort of a two part problem. Right. Problem one, Ovechkin is becoming more reliant on the players around him to create opportunities. Because he's just not as fast as he used to be. He's not as dynamic.

Number two, the players around him are getting worse. So it's like, if you're on a team that was somehow on the upswing that had elite players that could feed him the puck in dangerous spots on the power play consistently and, you know, would get him that offensive zone time he needs to succeed, then this would be a lot less painful.

But it seems like as you said, the old guard of this team is sort of crumbling. The new guard is mediocre at best to nonexistent, if you want to be really bearish on it. And it's just hard to envision where he goes. And again, like these type of conversations have been had before. And then Ovechkin goes on to score more than people expect. That could easily happen again this year.

But it just feels a little bit different, because the Capitals feel like that team that is like not even, I don't think not even really going to be on the periphery of the playoff race, like just truly one of those bad teams in the league. And it's tough to get what he wants to get done. Like the power play on that team has been nothing so far this year. And it'll be better than that. But it's not going to be good like the old days. Like he's not going to score I don't know 25 power play goals.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: I mean, the only thing-- like I don't think he's going to get 25 power play goals. But like, I think he'll at least be a genuine weapon, like an actual like just normal weapon still on the power play. Even if the-- I think the shot will come along a little bit. You know, so he's going to be something. Like he's still like a trigger man. He still knows how to find the net from his spot. Like he's been doing it for so long.

I think he'll figure it out, to some degree, on the power play. I think at five on five is where I get concerned for his goal. I mean, right now he's playing with Dylan Strome and Matthew Phillips. Like Matthew Phillips is mid 20s, never played in the league before. Dylan Strome is like an OK player. But on a good team, is he a 2C even. I would say no.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Probably not.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Right. Like like a real team. Like a mediocre team, sure. But like a real, like an actual good hockey team, I don't think so. And like, those are his linemates, like a guy who like might not stick in the NHL and a guy who's like realistically like a scoring 3C on a contender.

And then, and then you watch his game. And this, like obviously, he doesn't have the burst anymore. Like he's not like coming down the wall the way he used to and like ripping it through guy's legs. Like defenseman used to be terrified. Right. It's like, this guy will skate around me. He'll destroy me and get to the net, or he will rip one through my legs that I actually hope doesn't hit me. Because it's going to hurt and shelf it.

Like he doesn't have those things really in his bag anymore. Like what he has in his bag, which I still will say that I think he's solid at, is standing on the power play on his circle.

NICK ASHBOURNE: He's got his spot. Yeah. He knows where to be. And he knows how to fire. Like you're right. And also his size used to be such a big part of what made him effective, right, like how he could use his body. His size. And so, and that's not like that went away. But when the mobility aspect comes out of that, it's just harder to be in those situations where you're sheltering the puck and where you're kind of bruising your way to the front.

Like he's just, he's almost not there to get those opportunities. And yeah, five on five is going to be a really big problem this year, for that team, for him, overall. And yeah. I think my read on the situation right now is just, this is something that was supposed to be fun. And it's just not going to be fun.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: It feels a little bit like Patrick Marleau on the Sharks at the end, you know, where he was kind of dragging it out for the Iron Man streak there. And that team was terrible. And everyone kind of was like, well, like you're just, you're kind of like milking it along.

I mean, hey, if you got the goal record, like no one even thought that was possible. So I'm not comparing that piece of it

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

NICK ASHBOURNE: And to be fair.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Iron Man record. Like it's still insane.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Incredible. Like he's probably the best goal scorer of all time, when you think of the era and make those adjustments. Like this is not an Alex Ovechkin it was never a good player conversation or like that he doesn't deserve to be celebrated conversation. He absolutely does. Incredible. One of the best things we've ever seen watching hockey. It's just.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: It kind of sucks it's going to like go down like this.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah.