The Washington Capitals introduced Thursday night that additional checks on a leg harm to workforce captain Alex Ovechkin revealed a fracture in his left fibula. The 39-year previous franchise nice, who has been positioned on injured reserve, is now anticipated to overlook four-to-six weeks recovering.

Ovechkin was injured Monday evening within the Capitals’ sport in opposition to Utah after a shin-to-shin collision with Jack McBain, taking place in ache after which making an attempt to skate issues off earlier than exiting the sport. Initially, Ovechkin had been listed as week-to-week together with his harm earlier than additional testing. In his nineteenth season, the 39-year previous from Moscow has confirmed remarkably sturdy all through his NHL profession, as he had missed simply 35 video games as a result of harm previous to this incident.

Ovechkin leads the NHL with 15 objectives scored over his first 18 video games, which had put him nicely on tempo to break Wayne Gretzky’s NHL report of 894 objectives. He’s as much as 868 profession objectives and wishes 27 extra to surpass Gretzky and cement his legacy as one of many NHL’s best scorers ever.

The Capitals will now have to hold on with out Ovechkin for the foreseeable future, as they are going to proceed their season Thursday evening in opposition to the Colorado Avalanche.