📸: Katie Adler/RMNB
The Washington Capitals are in St. Paul to take on the Minnesota Wild. Caps captain Alex Ovechkin enters the game just six goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky for sole possession of the NHL’s all-time goals record.
Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury has played more games against Ovechkin (47) and given up more goals (28) to Ovechkin than any other goaltender. Fleury, expected to retire after the end of this season, will not be in net for Minnesota on Thursday night and, unless something otherworldly crazy happens, won’t be the goaltender to give up the record-breaking goal to Ovechkin.
“I had that thought because he could have broken it now, right?” Fleury told NHL.com. “At one point we thought that maybe. But I definitely didn’t want to be the guy that was going to be on highlights for the next 50 years getting scored on.”
Ovechkin played what is most likely to be his last-ever regular-season game against Fleury on January 2. The 39-year-old winger ripped a snapshot over Fleury’s right pad on a power play to score his 18th goal of the season and the 871st of his career.
Fleury got the last laugh in the game though, stopping Ovechkin in a shootout to secure a 4-3 Wild victory. The two future Hall of Famers exchanged signed sticks after the matchup.
“Obviously, he’s one of the best goalies to ever play,” Ovechkin said Thursday. “It’s kind of sad that he’s not playing tonight. I hope he’s going to sign one more year, but it was a pretty good battle out there between me and him.”
He later added, “It’s almost 20 years that we play against each other. Pittsburgh, Vegas, it’s been an honor to play against him.”
Fleury expressed a similar sentiment when evaluating their long-term rivalry, highlighting specifically their battles in the hotly-contested Capitals vs Pittsburgh Penguins feud.
“We’ve had such, especially when I was with Pittsburgh, so many good battles between Pitt and Wash, you know,” Fleury said. “Face them in the playoffs a couple of times, and the regular season it was always a big rivalry, especially between Sid and Ovi. But those games were always, good teams, and it was fun.
“Those were the games I loved playing because the intensity was always high and the atmosphere in the building, both sides, was always good too.”
Neither Fleury nor Ovechkin has won a Stanley Cup before besting the other in a playoff series. The Penguins and Fleury topped the Caps in 2009, 2016, and 2017 en route to Cups, and Ovechkin conquered Fleury, then with the Vegas Golden Knights, for the Capitals’ first-ever Stanley Cup in 2018.
Unless the Wild and Capitals meet in this year’s Cup Final, the Ovechkin and Fleury rivalry will end Thursday night in Minnesota.
“I feel lucky I got to play so many games against him,” Fleury said. “Maybe not getting scored on so much by him but it was a good battle. It was good times.”
