Alexander Ovechkin is in town tomorrow night, and with one goal he can pass Jaromir Jagr for third place on the NHL’s all-time goals list.
Jagr turned 50 last month, and is the best ever player to play for the Washington Capitals, if not the all-time Capital — a title that surely rests with Ovechkin after delivering the first Stanley Cup to that market back in 2018.
Jagr wore No. 68 throughout his illustrious career because that year Soviet tanks rolled into his homeland of Czechoslovakia to crush an uprising.
Here’s wondering if a future Ukrainian player will wear No. 22, because substitute Soviet for Russia, and Czechoslovakia for Ukraine, and you have a similar situation playing out just as Ovi approaches the record.
Ovechkin has allowed himself to be the chief sporting propagandist of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has wished Putin happy birthday on a least four occasions, has spread New Year’s Eve messages and Kremlin missives.
In 2014 he bought into the dubious pretext that Russia invaded Ukraine to save it from fascism, and five years ago founded a loose, informal organization called “PutinTeam.”