Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest hockey players in the modern National Hockey League (NHL). The “Big Eight” or “Ovi”, as he is affectionately and popularly called by friends and fans, currently plays as a winger for the Washington Capitals. He is also the captain of the team.
He was first selected by the capitals in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, but since the 2004-05 NHL lockout broke up the season, he had to stay back in Russia until 2005, before coming to the capital for the 2005-06 season. As a newcomer, Ovechkin showed his skills with 52 goals and 54 assists, leading all the newcomers with 108 points and finishing third overall in the league.
Prior to his NHL career, Ovechkin played for HC Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Superleague for four seasons from 2001 to 2005. In the NHL suspension 2012-13, he played again for HC Dynamo Moscow.
Alex Ovechkin Brief Bio (Age)
Alex was born on September 17, 1985, the son of two former athletes – Mikhail and Tatyana Ovechkina. His father Mikhail Ovechkin played football, while his mother Tatyana Ovechkin won two Olympic gold medals with the Soviet women’s ball group, first at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and then at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
Ovechkin had an older brother named Sergei who died of a blood clot after being involved in a car accident. Alex was only ten years old when his older brother died. His full name is actually Alexander Mikhailovich Ovechkin.
Alex Ovechkin Career
Actually, it was Sergei who introduced Alex Ovechkin to hockey at a very young age. At the age of eight, he signed up for hockey.
His career began at the age of sixteen when he started playing for Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League (RSL). Alex made his professional debut in the 2001-02 season when he scored four points in 21 games. He spent the next three seasons at Dynamo Moscow, scoring 36 goals and 32 assists in 152 games.
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During the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, Ovechkin was picked first overall by the Washington capitals, but due to the cancellation of the NHL lockout this season, he stayed in Russia and with Dynamo for another season. He made it to the Capitals in the 2005-06 season.
His first game with Washington Capitals was against Columbus Blue Jackets, and he scored two goals in that game, which ended in a 3-2 victory. He finished the season with 52 goals and 54 assists. With this record, he led all the rookies by 108 points and finished third in the league standings.
In fact, his overall score was the second-best in the history of the Washington Capitals and his goalscoring record was equal to the third place in the franchise’s history. This earned him a place on the NHL’s first all-star team, an honor he received as the first newcomer in 15 years. At the end of the season, he was also named the best rookie in the NHL.
In 2009, Alex Ovechkin scored his 200th goal in the game against the Los Angeles Kings, making him the fourth player in the history of the NHL to do so in just four seasons. Other players who achieved this milestone in NHL history ahead of Ovechkin include Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, and Wayne Gretzky.
In 2010, Ovechkin was named captain of the capitals after former captain Chris Clark switched to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He became the second youngest, first European, and 14th overall captain in the team’s history. In the same year, he reached his 500th birthday.
In 2012, he was suspended from three games because he had met Zbynek Michálek of the Pittsburgh Penguins. After the suspension, Ovechkin announced the next day that he would not play in the 2012 NHL All-Star game due to the suspension.
In 2017 he scored his 1,000th career point and became the 37th player in NHL history to do so with just one team, and in March he scored his 600th career goal and became the 20th player to break such a record and the fourth in history to do so in less than 1,000 games.
All Alex Ovechkin has done since moving to Washington capitals is break records, and in 2018 he broke another record when he led the team to the 2018 Stanley Cup final for the first time in twenty years. The last time the capitals reached this level was in 1998.
Ovechkin has also done well in international matches. During his stay in Russia, he led the national junior team to win the gold medal, once against the USA, and once against Switzerland. At the age of seventeen, he took part in the EuroTour Cup tournament Ceská Pojištovna and was the youngest figure skater ever to play for the Russian national team and score goals. He is also part of the team that represented Russia at the 2014 IIHF World Championships.
Wife (Anastasia Shubskaya), Girlfriend
Alex was once engaged to tennis player Maria Kirilenko, but in July 2014 Kirilenko announced that the engagement was broken and they would not see each other again and did not plan a wedding.
Ten months later, Ovechkin announced his engagement to Anastasia Shubskaya on Instagram. A year later, the couple entered into the marriage bond.
Shubskaya is a model and the daughter of Russian actress Vera Glagolev.
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Alex Ovechkin’s Net Worth
Alex Ovechkin is one of the NHL’s highest-paid players with an income of $12 million, an average salary of $9.5 million, and $3.5 million in endorsements, his estimated net worth is estimated at around $60 million.
Height
The multiple award-winning players are quite tall with a body height of 6 ft 3 – 191 cm in meters. He weighs 235 lb (107 kg; 16 st 11 lb).