During his 21-season career in the NHL, Alex Ovechkin has suited up alongside a staggering 39.1 percent of all Capitals players who have ever played with the team since the franchise’s first game on October 9, 1974.
While the list of teammates is long, Ovechkin was recently asked during a sit-down interview on Bruce Boudreau and Jeff Marek’s Hockey Lifers Podcast to pick the three that he misses playing with the most.
Ovechkin, somewhat expectedly, went with the three other members of the Capitals’ Young Guns contingent from the late 2000s.
“Backe, Greenie, and Semin,” Ovechkin said. “Those three. I think we have the best time, relationship on the ice and off the ice. We grown up together. Yeah, those three guys I miss the most.”
Nicklas Backstrom began playing with The Great 8 during the 2007-08 campaign. The two would go on to play 17 seasons together, the majority of which were spent as linemates.
Backstrom’s 279 assists on Ovechkin’s 901 career goals are the most of any player, and no other Capitals teammate has even hit the 200 mark. The two star forwards grew very close as they grew up together on the Capitals, with Backstrom even following Ovechkin to Dynamo Moscow in the KHL during the 2012-13 NHL lockout.
Ovechkin and Backstrom won the franchise’s lone Stanley Cup together in 2018. After lifting the Cup on his own, Ovechkin handed the trophy to Backstrom and skated around Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena with his long-time running mate.
The two played their final game together on October 29, 2023. Backstrom soon after put his NHL career on hold due to lingering issues with his surgically repaired hip, never returning to the ice before his contract with the Capitals ended this past July. The 37-year-old Swede is back on the ice in his home country this year with Brynäs IF, and Ovechkin has said he was keeping up with his old center’s games.
Mike Green, one of the best defensemen in Capitals history, was selected by the Capitals in the same draft and round as Ovechkin in 2004. Green made his NHL debut with the club a week after Ovechkin burst onto the scene with two goals in his debut game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Ovechkin and Green went on to play 10 seasons together with the Capitals before Green played the final five years of his career with the Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers. Green’s 70 career assists on Ovechkin’s goals rank fourth most among Capitals, behind just Backstrom, John Carlson (158), and Evgeny Kuznetsov (110).
The Capitals never achieved much playoff success with Green on their roster, but, as a member of the Caps, he did join Ovechkin on the 2009 and 2010 NHL First All-Star teams and at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game.
Alex Semin had already been selected by the Capitals in the first round of the 2002 NHL Draft when Ovechkin went first overall two years later. After making his NHL debut during the 2002-03 season, Semin went back to the Russian Super League for two years before joining up with Ovechkin and the Capitals for the 2006-07 campaign.
Semin assisted on 45 of Ovechkin’s goals during their short time together, which encompassed six seasons. The two have remained close since Semin departed the NHL for Russia in 2015, with Semin traveling to DC shortly after Ovechkin broke the NHL’s goals record, attending the April 10 Capitals game where the team honored Ovechkin with a “Gr8ness Pre-Game Ceremony”.
After Ovechkin listed off his three old pals, Boudreau, who coached all four players at the same time, chimed in with his thoughts on Ovi’s picks.
“They’re good guys. I loved them,” Boudreau said. “Semin would give me the most trouble, and Greenie was the most secretive. You never knew what Mike was up to. But I had them all, and I loved them all, too. You know what, Semin, what people don’t realize sometimes, because there was you, and then there was Semin, he was so talented.”
Semin remains the only Capitals player other than Ovechkin to score 40 goals in a season since 2005-06. He had a career high 84 points (40g, 44a) in 73 games with the Capitals during the 2009-10 season.
“I think he’s the most skilled guy I ever saw in my hockey career,” Ovechkin said. “Because we growing up together in Russia, we play against each other and on national teams, and then when I get drafted by Washington, he was already here. When I came here, he stay in Russia for one year, and then he came back, and our relationship get so tight. Obviously, we hang out together, we go out, we go dinner, we play together, so, yeah, it was special moment.”
Much of the 2025 campaign has been ugly for the Washington Commanders, and that held true in Week 10, as they suffered a 44-22 defeat at the hands of the Detroit Lions. The Commanders endured a complete meltdown on the defensive side of the ball that saw star defensive tackle Daron Payne get ejected early in the game for throwing a punch at Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
As it turns out, Payne wasn’t the only player on Washington’s defense who should have been ejected from this game. On the play immediately after Payne was ejected, defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw made contact with an official, which should have resulted in an ejection. While he did end up getting flagged on the play, it sounds like the NFL isn’t ready to let Kinlaw off the hook just because he didn’t get ejected.
After making it all the way to the NFC Championship Game last season, expectations were high for the Commanders in 2025. Instead, the team has fallen flat on its face, thanks to a slew of injuries that have decimated their roster. With this loss, Washington now has a 3-7 record, which all but ensures it won’t be making the playoffs this year.
Injuries can’t be the sole reason for a team’s struggles, though, and it’s worth noting that several of the remaining healthy players have struggled this year. That is perhaps most true on the defensive side of the ball, as the Commanders have simply been unable to prevent their opponents from scoring on a weekly basis.
It certainly doesn’t help when some of your best players like Payne are getting tossed from games, but that’s just how this season has gone for Washington. Multiple reports have confirmed that Kinlaw should have been ejected from this game as well for appearing to shove an official, but the crew did not want to eject two players on back-to-back plays. Instead, it appears as if Kinlaw should be bracing for a fine from the league later this week.
“Kinlaw also wasn’t suspended,” Mike Florio wrote for ProFootballTalk. “If he was going to be, it would have happened by now. Instead, it’s likely he’ll be fined this week, with the league including the punishment in the usual Saturday afternoon disclosure of all fines from the prior week.”
GettyATLANTA, GEORGIA – SEPTEMBER 28: Head coach Dan Quinn of the Washington Commanders looks on during the third quarter against the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on September 28, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
Kinlaw sticking around in this game wasn’t enough to save the Commanders, as the Lions still throttled them. Chances are, Payne wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things if he had stuck around, but this is simply the sort of thing these veterans shouldn’t be doing. The team is already in a tough spot; why go out of your way to make things worse?
Washington is barely holding onto hopes of a playoff push down the stretch of the season, and it will basically have to be perfect over its final seven games. That starts with getting a win in Week 11 when the team takes on the Miami Dolphins in Madrid, Spain. With the game being played overseas, kickoff for this contest is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ET.