Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin skated lightly by himself before the team’s practice on Monday, two weeks after breaking his left leg.
The Capitals announced their team captain would miss four to six weeks after he fractured his left fibula in a collision with Utah forward Jack McBain in Washington’s 6-2 win on Nov. 18.
Yet the 39-year-old forward was back on the ice on Monday, wearing a track suit and helmet and skating with his stick but no other hockey gear for a light workout.
“I don’t think he’s real, to be honest,” Capitals center Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “It’s been two weeks with a broken leg and he’s back on the ice. He’s a machine. … It’s great to see him back on the ice. He was happy when he got off, all excited. We were all excited. So, it’s a great sign, a step in the right direction.”
Capitals coach Spencer Carbery believes it was Ovechkin’s first time back on the ice.
“It was nice to see,” Carbery said. “Just the first step. No timeline updates or anything like that. This is just a step in the progression of him coming back.”
Washington hosts the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, when Ovechkin will miss his seventh consecutive game, marking a career-long layoff. He was sidelined for six straight games with an upper-body injury from Nov. 4-14, 2009.
While the Capitals have won four straight games after losing their first two without Ovechkin, he was on a hot streak before the injury. He scored two goals in the Utah game before going down and has 13 goals in his past 11. At the time, Ovechkin led the league with 15 goals in 18 games.
His pursuit of history was postponed as well. With 868 goals in his career, the Russian needs 27 to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time mark of 894.
Ovechkin already has the NHL records for career power-play goals (316) and shots on goal (6,690) in his 1,444 games. He has missed only 59 games, including 35 because of injury, in 20 NHL seasons.