The Capitals captain is a team player through and through, coach Spencer Carbery said.
Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin is 20 goals away from making history, as he's on pace to finish with 895 goals, breaking Wayne Gretzky's record for the most all-time.
It's no small feat, and looking from the outside in, one would wonder: how does that impact a team's structure? And critics have, with some questioning if it's a distraction to the Capitals dressing room.
In reality, it's far from that; in fact, it's the opposite.
"It's affected the team in a positive way. Some people people point to it and go, 'Wouldn't it be a distraction when you're searching for an individual accolade? Doesn't it cause issues inside your structure and playing a team game?' But it doesn't at all; it actually helps our guys," coach Spencer Carbery explained. "It energizes our group when he's going and gets a couple of early scoring chances or even scores early in a game. The lift it gives our group as a whole is incredible, and I can feel it standing behind our group."
A lot of the credit goes to Ovechkin himself, who, even surrounded by a sea of microphones and questions about breaking a record once thought to be impossible, prioritizes his team first.
"O does such a good job of this: it's never about the individual goal, it's focusing on the team aspect of it. He wants to score, no doubt about that — he's as hungry as anybody to ever play the game to score — but it's all within the team structure and the team winning a hockey game," Carbery added. "If you ask him it sounds like a broken record but that's what he said his entire career, and he lives that and believes that and the guys can feel it. It's never an individual accolade where guys feel like it's a selfish situation in a team sport."
When asked about the record, Ovechkin will often say he's taking it "game by game, shift by shift," and this season, he's even declined to answer questions regarding the record, often deferring the attention away from himself and toward the team's collective success.
Washington currently sits atop the NHL standings.
"Obviously, he's an all-time great," Andrew Mangiapane said. "Seeing his every day kind of lifestyle and seeing him on the ice every time he scores, it's a great kind of feeling... it pumps up everybody on our bench."
"He was one of the best leaders. Even if he didn't score, he was still happy, he was in a good mood, even if he played bad... He didn't deserve all that negativity about not being a team player or not being a leader, that would really piss me off," alum Jose Theodore added. "I've never seen a guy who wants to win as bad as him."
At the end of the day, it's just the kind of person that Ovechkin is, as he continues to set the example in his 20th NHL season.
"He does a really good job of humanizing himself," Carbery said, adding, "O makes it so seamless for people to come into our room, whether it's coaches, myself or new players, and it's no big deal. We're playing together, we're on the same team, he'll crack a joke here or there he'll bring them right into a team dinner or drill after practice and he just makes you feel like we're just in this together and you're just part of the team...
"That's sometimes hard when you're talking about one of the greatest players to ever lace 'em up in Alex Ovechkin, but he makes you feel like we're on an even playing field and just in this together."