Alex Ovechkin fractured fibula in left leg, will be sidelined four to six weeks

The Washington Capitals announced that Alex Ovechkin will be out four-to-six weeks due to his left leg injury.

The Caps say Ovechkin fractured his fibula, one of the bones in his lower leg that extends from the knee down to the ankle, in his collision with the Utah Hockey Club’s Jack McBain on Monday night.

The Capitals tell the media that Ovechkin’s injury will not require surgery.

Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin underwent further evaluation with team doctors. It was confirmed that Ovechkin has a fracture to his left fibula and is anticipated to miss 4-6 weeks.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 21, 2024

The Capitals captain went down with 14:30 remaining in the third period after McBain cut sharply across Washington’s zone to try and take possession of a loose puck and made leg-on-leg contact with Ovechkin. Ovechkin, who had already scored twice in the game, immediately fell to the ice in clear pain.

Washington previously announced that Ovechkin would be out week-to-week when the team returned home from Utah. If the superstar winger is out four weeks from the day of the injury, he will miss 12 games. If the recovery needs the full six weeks, he will miss an estimated 18 games.

Ovechkin’s previous longest stint out of the lineup with an injury is the seven games he missed at the end of the 2020-21 season due to a nagging “lower-body injury.” He also missed six games during the 2009-10 campaign with an “upper-body strain” after a scrum involving Jason Chimera.

“I was talking to O and got the news, and then kind of went to talk to some of the other guys, and we were sitting there saying like, ‘This is weird. Like, it’s unbelievable that he’s actually hurt,’” Tom Wilson said Wednesday. “It’s one of those things where like, he’s going to miss games? It’s new to me.”

Ovechkin had scored a league-leading 15 goals through the first 18 games of the season, the highest goals-per-game rate of his career (0.83). He was on pace to score a career-high 68 goals and shatter Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record. He leaves the lineup with 868 career goals, 26 shy of tying Gretzky for a share of the record.

Spencer Carbery is giving Andrew Mangiapane the opportunity to play with Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas on the Capitals’ first line in their first Ovechkin-less game against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night. Washington also recalled Ivan Miroshnichenko from the AHL’s Hershey Bears to fill Ovechkin’s roster spot.