Alex Ovechkin Final Season: Leafs Fans Get Two Last Looks in Toronto

Alex Ovechkin final season confirmed

Alex Ovechkin told his Washington Capitals teammates before practice on Monday, Oct. 5, that 2026-27 will be his last NHL season. The announcement came 21 years to the day after his NHL debut on Oct. 5, 2005. For Maple Leafs fans, the Alex Ovechkin final season comes down to two dates on the calendar: Dec. 21 and March 28, the two nights the Capitals visit Scotiabank Arena.

Ovechkin is 41, is starting his 22nd season, and owns the NHL's career goals record with 929 regular-season goals. He passed Wayne Gretzky's 894 in April 2025 and has kept going. Add his 77 playoff goals and he sits at 1,006 combined, second only to Gretzky's 1,016.

He told reporters, as relayed by NHL.com's Tom Gulitti, that the decision was made over the summer with his family, and that it mattered to him that his teammates heard it first, before Washington's home opener against Pittsburgh on Oct. 8. "Me and my wife talked about how I have to feel in my body as well," he said. "I'm not 20 years old and I want to play with my kids when they're growing up."

The reaction in Washington was what you would expect. Tom Wilson, his longtime linemate, described "a lot of mixed emotions" on hearing the finality of it. Head coach Spencer Carbery said there was sadness first and then gratitude. Dylan Strome put the team's goal plainly: compete for a Stanley Cup and give Ovechkin the best chance to win one more.

The numbers behind the goodbye

The sheer volume is the story. Ovechkin has 20 seasons of 30 or more goals, 14 of 40-plus and nine of 50-plus. He holds the NHL record for power-play goals with 331. He won the Calder Trophy in 2005-06, three Hart Trophies, an Art Ross and the 2018 Conn Smythe, when he scored 15 playoff goals on the way to Washington's first Stanley Cup.

He is not walking away as a passenger, either. Last season he played all 82 games and scored 32 goals with 64 points. Washington still missed the playoffs, finishing three points behind Philadelphia.

Here is how his final contract is built, according to NHL.com:

ComponentAmountNoteBase salary$1 millionOne-year deal signed July 2, 2026Signing bonus$3.25 millionAlready earnedGames-played bonus$4.75 millionTriggered at 10 games

That structure is a quiet tell. A bonus that pays out after 10 games is the kind of deal you sign when everyone already knows the player intends to finish the season. Monday made it official.

When Ovechkin plays the Maple Leafs in Toronto

The Capitals play nine more regular-season games in Canada, and two of them are in Toronto. The Canadian Press laid out the full Canadian swing on Oct. 5. Here are the dates that matter to Leafs fans:

DateGameWhy it mattersDec. 21, 2026Capitals at Maple LeafsFirst Toronto stop of the farewell season, days before ChristmasMarch 28, 2027Capitals at Maple LeafsOvechkin's last scheduled regular-season game at Scotiabank Arena

If you have ever wanted to see him live, March 28 is the one to circle, and ticket prices are already reflecting it. Toronto crowds have booed Ovechkin for two decades. On March 28, the reaction should be different.

Both games also fall in the stretch where Toronto's own season will be decided. The Leafs opened 1-2-0, and our standings page will tell you how much those late-March points will be worth.

Ovechkin's history with the Maple Leafs

Ovechkin has hurt Toronto a lot over 21 years. Public counts of his goals against the Leafs differ slightly by source, but they all land in the mid-40s, which makes Toronto one of his favourite targets.

Two moments stand out for this generation of Leafs fans. The first is the 2017 first round, Auston Matthews' rookie season, when the Presidents' Trophy-winning Capitals beat Toronto in six games in a series that was much closer than the seeding suggested. That series is where the modern Leafs core first proved it belonged in the playoffs, even in defeat.

The second is Dec. 28, 2024, at Scotiabank Arena. Ovechkin had missed 16 games with a fractured left fibula, the longest absence of his career, and came back against Toronto. He scored an empty-net goal, his 869th, in a 5-2 Capitals win, and left the building 25 goals shy of tying Gretzky. He broke the record about three months later.

The Kirill Marchenko connection

The Leafs now have a player who grew up wanting to be Ovechkin. Kirill Marchenko, acquired from Columbus in the Matthew Knies trade on Sept. 29, told reporters after Monday's announcement that Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin were the players who got him hooked on hockey as a kid in Russia. He used the same stick as Ovechkin and wore the same yellow laces on his skates, according to The Hockey News.

Marchenko also said he wore No. 34 on SKA St. Petersburg's junior team partly because of Auston Matthews, on the logic that if Matthews scored in that number, maybe he would too. He now plays on Matthews' left side, his off-wing, on Toronto's top line, which is a decent way for a childhood joke to turn out.

Marchenko scored his first goal as a Leaf on the power play in the 3-2 loss to Ottawa on Oct. 3. If you want the details on how he fits, read our breakdown of what his $12.5 million extension does to the Leafs cap.

What it means for Auston Matthews

Every Ovechkin milestone has been followed by the same question in Toronto: can Matthews catch him? The honest answer has never looked further away.

Matthews finished 2025-26 with 428 regular-season goals in 689 games, every one of them for the Leafs. He passed Mats Sundin for the franchise record last January. At 29, he is the best pure goal-scorer of his generation, with three Rocket Richard Trophies and the cap-era record of 69 goals in 2023-24. He would still need more than 500 additional goals to reach 929. Matthews himself has said publicly that he does not think he belongs in that conversation, and he is right.

That is not a knock on Matthews. It is a measure of how absurd Ovechkin's career has been. The more useful comparison for Leafs fans is this: Ovechkin won his Cup in his 13th season, at 32, after a decade of playoff disappointments and years of being told he could not win the big one. Matthews is entering his 11th season, and he has the knee to manage after last March's MCL tear. Ovechkin's career is proof that the window does not close on a schedule, but it does close.

Our take: say goodbye properly

LeafsLurker's view is simple. Ovechkin is the most prolific goal-scorer the league has ever seen, and he did a lot of that damage against Toronto. Leafs fans do not owe him affection. They do owe him respect, and March 28 is the night to show it.

The Leafs, meanwhile, should want those two games for their own reasons. Washington is a Metropolitan Division team playing a farewell season with nothing to lose and a captain everybody wants to send off well. That is a dangerous opponent in late March. Bank the points in December.

What's next

The Capitals open at home against Pittsburgh on Oct. 8, a fitting Ovechkin-Crosby start to the farewell tour. The Leafs face Nashville on Oct. 6 at Scotiabank Arena; our Predators preview has the matchup. The countdown to Dec. 21 starts now.