Crucial day for Alex Ovechkin on Wednesday

Earlier this summer, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said players who are currently in Russia must make “the best possible decisions for themselves and their families” when it comes to returning to North America for next season.

This was all prompted when Philadelphia Flyers goaltending prospect Ivan Fedotov was picked up by law enforcement in Russia on suspicion of evading military service and was relocated to a remote military base in northern Russia. Then, there was talk that Minnesota Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov was wanted by police in a case involving fraudulent military ID, though it all seemed to get resolved when the player came back to America.

Fans started to wonder when Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin would return to the United States, he who came under fire more than once during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as he has been a huge supporter of president Vladimir Putin.

On Tuesday night, it was confirmed that today was the day: as his agent Gleb Chistyakov revealed while speaking with a correspondent from Sport-Express when Ovi is expected to leave Russia.

“Ovechkin plans to fly out of Russia on September 7th,” Chistyakov told Sport-Express, translated from Russian. “Then he will fly to America to prepare for the season with Washington.”

Ovechkin has been training off the ice during the summer, while taking his son Sergei to a ceremonial face-off before Dynamo Moscow’s regular season KHL opener.

We don’t see how Ovechkin would have any issue getting back to America (seeing his associations with Putin) but Russian players returning to USA remains a hot topic.

In 77 games last season, Ovechkin recorded the ninth 50-goal season of his career. He is just 21 goals behind Gordie Howe for second on the all-time list and another season of that ilk would put him just over 60 goals away from Wayne Gretzky.