Ovechkin day-to-day, could miss all of Capitals' preseason

Alex Ovechkin is day-to-day with a lower-body injury and may miss the entire preseason, per NHL.com's status report. The 41-year-old Capitals captain missed practice Sunday and Monday and sat out Washington's first two exhibition games.

What we know

Ovechkin hasn't skated since the injury surfaced, per Russian Machine Never Breaks, which noted he'd been on a line with Dylan Strome and Ryan Leonard during the opening days of camp. Coach Spencer Carbery told reporters the team is off Tuesday and will reassess after two practice days.

"Right now, we'll see how it goes this week," Carbery said, per NHL.com. When pressed on whether Ovechkin would play in any of the remaining preseason games, he wouldn't bite. "I'm not going to commit to anything," he said, per RMNB.

The Hockey News reports the earliest realistic return would be Friday's home game against Boston or Saturday's finale in Philadelphia. Nobody in Washington is promising either.

Why it matters

This is the third straight September that Ovechkin has started camp hurt, per RMNB. Last year it was a lower-body issue too, and he still got into two preseason games. He then led the Caps with 32 goals and 64 points, per The Hockey News, on a team that missed the playoffs by a point or two.

He's entering his 22nd season, and RMNB notes it could be his last. A missed preseason for a 41-year-old with a career built on one-timers isn't a crisis. A missed October would be.

Ovechkin himself sounded like a guy who's tired of the question. "The season has not started yet and we have to be ready for Game 1," he said, per The Hockey News. "If you look at last year we missed by one point or two points."

Ferda Take

The Caps don't need Ovechkin to play preseason hockey. They need him for 82 games and the left circle on the power play. If the medical staff says rest, you rest him and let Leonard and Strome figure out the line without him for a week.

The sarcastic version: the league's all-time goal scorer has earned the right to skip games against Philadelphia's fourth-liners in September. The honest version: three camps in a row starting on the trainer's table is a pattern, not a coincidence, and Washington's cap sheet has no Plan B for that left wing.

We'll take Carbery at his word that this is day-to-day. Injuries are one thing we don't joke about.

What's next

Washington practices Wednesday and Thursday. If Ovechkin is on the ice by then, Friday against the Bruins is in play. If he isn't, the next date that matters is opening night.