The Capitals captain has eight goals in his last five games after managing just eight through the first half of the season.
Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin is rediscovering his scoring touch, and it's earned him top honors as he's been named the NHL's First Star of the Week.
Ovechkin has eight goals in his last five games, and three of those games were multi-goal outings. He is now up to 26 on the season and 848 in his career, putting him just 47 goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky for the most in NHL history.
The 38-year-old has 18 goals in his last 24 games after managing just eight goals in the first 43 games of the season. If he maintained this rate from the start of the year, he would have been on pace for 61 goals.
"I don't know what else to say; it's not surprising," John Carlson said of Ovechkin's resurgence. "It's obviously great to see at a pivotal time of the year. That's huge, the captain leading the troops. We've kind of fallen in line."
For Ovechkin, he is not sure exactly what led to him finding his game again, but it's been a major boost for his team as the Capitals have managed to climb back into the second Wild Card spot.
"I think right now you can see how we play. I think everybody have confidence, everybody understand the situation," Ovechkin said. "How I said a couple days ago, that's why we fight all year... when we finish the season in two weeks, we want to keep playing.
"I don't know (if I expected to turn it around). Puck goes in. You know, I find a way to find the shooting lanes," he added, before sneaking in a grin, "And sticks."