Alex Ovechkin is set to enter his 20th season in the NHL after making his debut in 2005 as a 20-year-old. The Washington Capitals captain will turn 39 on September 17, five days before the team kicks their 2024-25 preseason off with a game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Great Eight will be the fifth-oldest player on an active NHL roster to start the year. Among those five players, just two of them are forwards.
Top 10 oldest, active NHL players
| Player | Team | Birthdate |
|---|---|---|
| Marc-Andre Fleury, G | MIN | 11/28/1984 (39) |
| Ryan Suter, D | STL | 1/21/1985 (39) |
| Brent Burns, D | CAR | 3/9/1985 (39) |
| Corey Perry, F | EDM | 5/16/1985 (39) |
| Alex Ovechkin, F | WSH | 9/17/1985 (38) |
| Jonathan Quick, G | NYR | 1/21/1986 (38) |
| Evgeni Malkin, F | PIT | 7/31/1986 (38) |
| TJ Oshie, F | WSH | 12/23/1986 (37) |
| Derek Ryan, F | EDM | 12/29/1986 (37) |
| Trevor Lewis, F | LAK | 1/8/1987 (37) |
Ovechkin is the oldest player to be signed through the 2025-26 season, something among the top 10 that only he and Evgeni Malkin can claim. He is also the highest-paid of the top 10, making $3.4 million more against the cap than Malkin. The two Russians are also the lone players from the 2004 NHL Draft still in the league.
Washington’s elder statesman is no stranger to bucking age-related trends despite today’s NHL putting more of an onus on speed and skating. Ovechkin had the third longest point streak (10 games) for a player age 38 or older in modern NHL history and later had a run last March where he became the oldest player in NHL history to score 8 or more goals in a 5-game span.
During his age-36 campaign, Ovi became the oldest player in league history to score 50 goals in a season, eclipsing a record held by Johnny Bucyk for over 50 years. That same season he also broke Teemu Selanne’s record (48) for most goals in a season by a player 36 or older.
Additionally, Ovechkin is the oldest player in Capitals franchise history to record a hat trick after he tallied three times against the Florida Panthers in November of 2021. He has since broken his own record twice.
Only the Capitals and Edmonton Oilers have more than one player within the top 10 oldest, active players although TJ Oshie’s status for the 2024-25 season is in major doubt. Edmonton is one of two teams set to have an average age over 30 next season, joining the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Capitals have progressively gotten younger over the past few years, entering the season with the eighth-oldest roster in the league, averaging an age of 28.9 per player. That average drops even further to 27.8 if you replace Oshie with someone like Ivan Miroshnichenko.
