Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby will see each other twice in the final weekend of the NHL regular season, a pair of games that will push their rivalry to its 100th and 101st meetings in league play, including the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Pittsburgh Penguins host the Washington Capitals at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, then the teams meet again Sunday at 3 p.m. ET at Capital One Arena in Washington.
For Ovechkin, the weekend comes as he sits in the final season of the five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed with Washington in 2021, and after he said earlier this week that he will wait until the offseason to decide whether he will play in the NHL again next season. The Capitals entered the weekend at 40-30-9, three points behind the Philadelphia Flyers for third in the Metropolitan Division and five points behind the Ottawa Senators for the second wild card from the East.
The Penguins came in at 41-22-16 and already had their playoff spot locked up after a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, leaving them safely in second place in the Metropolitan Division. That sets up a contrast around the final two games between two teams headed in different directions, even if the names at the center of it have not changed since they first met at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh on Nov. 22, 2005.
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Ovechkin called it history on Friday, saying the two have spent 20 years playing against each other and are still battling with a good match. Crosby said he wants to enjoy it while staying focused on playing the right way, but added that if these are the last couple of games, he wants to embrace that. The first overall picks in the 2004 NHL Draft and 2005 NHL Draft have met through 21 seasons, and Ovechkin’s 928 regular-season goals only add to the scale of what Saturday and Sunday represent.
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Whether this is the last chapter or just another one, the weekend gives the NHL its most familiar individual rivalry one more full-stage turn, with the stakes split between the standings and the possibility that the sport may be watching the end of a run that has defined an era.
