Alex Ovechkin was held out of Tuesday’s game because he overslept, missed practice

Alex Ovechkin missed Tuesday’s game against the San Jose Sharks because he set his alarm wrong and overslept. After missing the morning skate, coach Barry Trotz told Ovechkin he would be a scratch Tuesday night. The Capitals lost 5-0 to the Sharks.

When Washington’s Alex Ovechkin was absent from practice Tuesday, coach Barry Trotz said it was for “personal reasons” and the superstar was a game-time decision the Captials’ game against the San Jose Sharks. Turns out those personal reasons were a simple alarm clock error.

According to The Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan, Ovechkin set his alarm for 8:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 a.m., which caused him to miss the Capitals’ morning skate. Because Ovechkin missed the practice, he was held out of the game, as per team rules. When he arrived at Washington’s practice facility late, Trotz told the ‘Great 8’ that he wouldn’t be in the lineup against San Jose.

When Trotz was asked why he didn’t make public the reason for Ovechkin’s absence from the lineup, he told Khurshudyan that the team, “tried to not make a big deal of it yesterday because it was a game day.”

The Ovechkin-less Capitals were shutout in Tuesday’s game by goaltender Martin Jones and the Sharks, 5-0. Winger Marcus Johansson slid up the lineup to fill Ovechkin’s spot and skated on a line with T.J. Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Ovechkin, 30, was off to a hot start this season. In his season debut, he scored a highlight-reel goal and assisted on a power play tally.

By being held out of action Tuesday, Ovechkin missed just his sixth game in the past three seasons. Over his 10-year career, he has only missed 27 of a possible 788 games and has only once missed more than four games in a campaign. Now that he has his alarm clock figured out, don’t count on Ovechkin being out of the lineup anymore.