Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest ice hockey players of the modern National Hockey League (NHL). The Great Eight” or “Ovi” as he is fondly and popularly called by friends and fans currently plays for the Washington Capitals as a winger. He is also the captain of the team.
He was first selected by the Capitals in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft but with the 2004–05 NHL lockout canceling the season, he had to stay back in Russia until 2005 before joining the capital for the 2005–06 season. As a rookie, Ovechkin showed off his abilities by scoring 52 goals and 54 assists, leading all rookies with 108 points, he finished third overall in the league scoring.
Before his NHL career, he played for the HC Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Superleague for four seasons that spanned from 2001 to 2005, he returned to play for them again in the 2012–13 NHL lockout.
Alex Ovechkin Brief Bio (Age)
Alex was born on the 17th day of September 1985 to two former athletes – Mikhail and Tatyana Ovechkina. His father Mikhail Ovechkin played soccer while his mother Tatiana Ovechkin won two Olympic gold medals with the Soviet ladies’ ball group, first at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal and at the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics.
Ovechkin had an older brother named Sergei who died from a blood clot after he was involved in a car accident. Alex was just ten years when his older brother died. His full name is actually Alexander Mikhailovich Ovechkin.
Career
It was actually Sergei that introduced Alex Ovechkin to hockey at a very young age. At the age of eight, he registered in hockey.
His career kicked off in full at the age of sixteen when he began playing for Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League (RSL). Alex made his professional debut in the 2001–02 season, scoring four points in 21 games. He spent the next three seasons at the Dynamo Moscow and racked up a total of 36 goals and 32 assists in 152 games
During the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, Ovechkin was selected first overall by the Washington Capitals but due to the NHL lockout cancellation that season, he remained in Russia and with Dynamo for one more season. He joined the Capitals in 2005–06 season.
His first game with Washington Capitals was against Columbus Blue Jackets and he scored two goals in that match that ended in a 3–2 victory. He ended that season scoring 52 goals and 54 assists, with this record, he led all rookies with 108 points and finished third overall in the league scoring.
In fact, his point total was the second-best in the history of the Washington Capitals and his goal total tied for third in franchise history. This earned him a place in the NHL First All-Star Team, an honor which he was the first rookie to receive in 15 years. At the end of the season, he was also awarded NHL’s best rookie.
In 2009, Alex Ovechkin recorded his 200th goal in the match against the Los Angeles Kings and became the fourth player in the history of the NHL to do so in just four seasons. Other players to reach this milestone in NHL history before Ovechkin are: Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, and Wayne Gretzky.
In 2010, Ovechkin was named the captain of the Capitals after the former captain Chris Clark moved over to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He became the second-youngest, first European, and 14th overall captain in the team’s history. That same year, he recorded his 500th point.
In 2012, he received a three-game ban for hitting Pittsburgh Penguins’ Zbyněk Michálek. After the ban, Ovechkin announced the next day that he would not be attending the 2012 NHL All-Star Game due to the suspension.
In 2017, he scored his 1,000th career point and became the 37th player in the history of the NHL to do so with only one team, and in March he scored his 600th career goal to become the 20th player to break such record as well as the fourth in history to do so in less than 1,000 games.
All Alex Ovechkin has been doing since he moved to Washington Capitals is to break records and in 2018, he broke yet another record when he led the team to the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in twenty years. The last time the Capitals attained this level was in 1998.
Ovechkin has also done well in international plays. While in Russia, he led the Junior National Team to the Gold medal win, one against the US and the other against Switzerland. At age seventeen, he participated in the Česká Pojišťovna Cup EuroTour tournament and emerged as the youngest skater ever to play and score for the Russian national team. He is also part of the team that represented Russia in the 2014 IIHF World Championships.
Wife (Anastasia Shubskaya), Girlfriend
Alex was once engaged to tennis player Maria Kirilenko, but in July 2014, Kirilenko announced that the engagement was off and they were no longer seeing each other nor were they planning a wedding.
Ten months later, Ovechkin announced his engagement to Anastasia Shubskaya on Instagram. The couple tied the knot a year later.
Shubskaya is a model and the daughter of Russian actress Vera Glagolev.
Alex Ovechkin Net Worth
Alex Ovechkin is one of the NHL’s highest-paid players with an income of $12 million, an average salary of $9.5 million, and $3.5 Million in Endorsements, his estimated net worth is put at about $60 million.
Height
The multiple award-winning players is quite tall, standing at 6 ft 3 – 191 cm in meters. He weighs 235 lb (107 kg; 16 st 11 lb).
