Alexander Ovechkin contract

The Ovechkin contract – good for him. Locking up $124 million bucks at the age of 22... not bad, not bad at all.

Whether you call him Ovi, Alexander the Great, Alexander the Eight (lame), the Ocho (my preference), whatever, the Caps have locked up one of the league’s top young talents for a long time and he has life long financial security. One point: Did Washington not learn anything from their disastrous mega-bucks contract with Jagr? Ovechkin will make approximately 20% of the team’s cap for the next couple of seasons and who knows where the cap will go in the future (Washington had better hope it goes up significantly). What happens if Ovi gets a knee injury, loses his burst and is reduced to merely a very good player for the final 8 years of the contract?

Crazy, crazy stuff but at the same time, what choice did they have? And Ovi doesn’t have an agent to pocket 10% of his windfall. Good times to be young, talented and Russian in Washington. Brace for the weekend chorus of, “Why, again, did we have the lockout?”