from Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated,
True to his promise, the Capitals winger spent that night in mid-March hopscotching through topics, gleaning whatever he could from an idol, yes, but also peering into his own future. How did Gretzky manage his body after turning 30, which Ovechkin did last September? How did Gretzky feel hoisting four Stanley Cups, something Ovechkin hasn’t done once? “How he trained, how he played, all different stuff,” Ovechkin says. At some point he started sheepishly prefacing requests with, “Is it all right if I ask one more?” As dinner ended after several hours, Ovechkin requested that Gretzky stick around a little longer, feeling there was still more ground to cover.
This amused Gretzky. Such enthusiasm, he told Ovechkin, reminded him of the first time he met Gordie Howe. “I could’ve asked questions for two days,” Gretzky says. “I had that same sense with Alex.”
The timing felt right for Ovechkin to seek such counsel. Even after losing to the Kings in overtime the night before, he and the Capitals were cruising toward the league’s best record; in less than three weeks they would clinch the Presidents’ Trophy before any other Eastern Conference team secured a playoff berth. Ovechkin, meanwhile, remains the same dominant goal scorer. On Nov. 19 he overtook Sergei Fedorov atop the Russian-born career list. On Jan. 10 he became the fifth fastest to reach 500. On April 9 a hat trick in St. Louis gave him three straight 50-goal seasons, or three more than the rest of the NHL in that time. But these days his individual milestones only highlight what he still lacks.
“I have everything in my career besides a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal,” he says. “Nobody remembers who’s second place. Everyone remembers the winner.”
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