The former Capitals winger spoke with TASS.
Former Washington Capitals winger Alex Semin is watching with the rest of the hockey world to see what his longtime friend and former teammate in captain Alex Ovechkin will decide when it comes to his future in the NHL.
Ovechkin is set to become an unrestricted free agent in July, and that's also when the 40-year-old told FONBET that he'll have his decision by.
As the Capitals wait for him to decide, Semin spoke with TASS about Ovechkin and said that his choice will heavily depend on how he's feeling physically.
"It's a tough question; it all depends on him, whether he wants to play for another year, because staying in such good shape at 40 is pretty tough," Semin said, per a DeepL translation. "It gets harder to keep up, and the younger players are catching up and overtaking him. I can't speak for him—it's entirely up to him."
Ovechkin is coming off his 21st NHL season, where, despite the league getting faster, he led Washington in scoring with 32 goals and 64 points.
At the end of the season, Ovechkin himself also said that it's hard to keep up with the league, and said he'll consult with his longtime trainer, Pavel Burlachenko, this offseason.
“Well, it’s up to me, like how I’m going to handle my body, how I’m going to train. Like when you’re in the season and you have a 25-30 minute skate, it’s nice. But in the summer, you have to work your ass off to get better and be in shape," Ovechkin said. When you’re 20, it’s a normal thing, but when you’re 40, it’s kind of like harder and harder every year. But I’m going to talk to Pavel and we’re going to figure it out and we’ll see what the decision is going to be and from that we’re going to prepare.7
“Well, obviously, you can see the speed of the game is tremendous. Obviously, if you’re (Connor) McDavid or (Nathan) MacKinnon, it’s an easy game for you, but when you try to battle with them, it’s hard... I wish I can skate like (Ethen Frank), but everybody’s different. So, how I said, everything is going to be made with the decision and me and Pavel, if I’m staying, we just have to figure out what we have to do better to stay on that level to be able to play.”