Capitals owner personally apologizes to his all-world player!

Alex Ovechkin will enter his eleventh NHL season next fall and will be turning 30 years old has he does it. Time flies for the best sniper in the NHL, and he has yet to win a Stanley Cup. A lot of analysts and fans have criticized the Capitals captain for his lack of playoffs success. Still, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis has his best player's back, even taking the blame on himself for Washington's lack of success in the postseason.

"I felt the window to win with him was 10 years old," Leonsis said at Capitals Fan Fest. "He's a fantastic player. He plays hard all the time, and I feel I haven't met my commitment to him, that we would build a team that would be able to win Stanley Cups. The difference between winning and losing is just so small, so I do not think our window as an organization is closing. "We're in it together. He knows we’re committed. He can sense it and see it. He sees how much we invest. He knows how much we spend. He knows how hard we're trying, and it's so close, the difference between winning and losing, it's just so small. I think we've improved as a team and I'm hoping, like all 29 other owners, that this is the year, and the only way you'll know it is talking to you next year at this time to say, 'How did the season go?'"

Alex Ovechkin stormed into the league as a 19-year-old back in 2005-2006, scoring 52 goals and registering 106 points. If the veteran winger has failed to reach the 100-point mark since he last did it in 2009-2010, he is still the league's most dangerous sniper, scoring 50 goals in the last two seasons and 32 in only 48 games in the lock-out shortened season of 2012-2013. He has won the Hart trophy as the league's MVP three times along the way. It is true the Capitals have failed to put consistent solid teams around the best player in franchise history. But things could be on the verge of changing with goaltender Braden Holtby emerging as an elite keeper last season and the arrival of fellow Russian Evgeny Kuznetsov who could finally be the legitimate second line center the Caps' have been looking for all along.