Tom Wilson Reflects On Capitals’ NHL Playoff Miss, Ovechkin’s Legacy

Tom Wilson (R) has spent his entire 13-year NHL career playing alongside Alex Ovechkin (L) on the Washington Capital. (Photo by Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

On Tuesday, the Washington Capitals and Columbus Blue Jackets will close out their 2025-26 NHL seasons at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

Monday night, that game became meaningless when the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Carolina Hurricanes in a shootout. The two points that came with the win secured the final Eastern Conference playoff spot for the Flyers, while ending the Capitals and Blue Jackets’ hopes of reaching the post-season.

“I was looking at the points the other day,” said Capitals right winger Tom Wilson on Monday, as his team played the waiting game in Columbus. “I think we’re 12th in the league in points and seventh in regulation wins. We’ve had a pretty solid season.”

He’s right. If the Capitals were it the Western Conference this year, they’d be sitting pretty. With 93 points and one game remaining, they’re tied with the Vegas Golden Knights, who currently sit in the top spot in the Pacific Division.

Vegas clinched its playoff spot on Saturday and has gone 6-0-1 since John Tortorella took over behind the bench on Mar. 29. And while the final seeding is still to be determined in both conferences, the Los Angeles Kings claimed the final spot in the West on Monday. Their 5-3 win over the Seattle Kraken gives them 89 points, with two games left to play. Los Angeles also made a coaching change earlier this season. When Jim Hiller was fired on Mar. 1, the Kings were three points out of a wild-card spot. They’ve gone 11-5-5 since interim coach D.J. Smith took the reins.

2026 NHL Playoff Picture

The 2025-26 regular season wraps up on Thursday, and the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin on Saturday. Here’s what we know so far.

We’ll have a new Stanley Cup Champion. After back-to-back wins in 2024 and 2025, the Florida Panthers currently sit third-last in the Eastern Conference. Hobbled by injuries all season, the Panthes are 15 points out of a playoff berth.

Along with Florida and Washington, the four other teams from the 2025 playoffs that will be watching from the sidelines are the Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, Winnipeg Jets and St. Louis Blues.

They’ve been replaced by the Buffalo Sabres, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Flyers, the Boston Bruins, the Anaheim Ducks and the Utah Mammoth.

After replacing GM Kevyn Adams with Jarmo Kekalainen in December, the Sabres have surged to top spot in the Atlantic Division, snapping their league-high 14-year post-season drought. Under their new coach, Dan Muse, the Penguins are back in the playoffs after a three-year absence, while the Flyers are back in the playoffs for the first time since the 2020 pandemic bubble under Rick Tocchet and the Bruins return after a one-year absence under their new coach, Marco Sturm. In the West, the Ducks end a seven-year drought under new bench boss Joel Quenneville and the Mammoth reach the post-season in just their second year of existence. Like the Flyers, the last time the Arizona Coyotes made the playoffs was in 2020.

All told, five of the nine new coaches who were hired during the 2025 off-season got their teams into playoff spots: Muse, Tocchet, Sturm, Quenneville and Glen Gulutzan in Dallas. The four who didn’t: Mike Sullivan with the New York Rangers, Lane Lambert with the Seattle Kraken, Jeff Blashill with the Chicago Blackhawks and Adam Foote with the Vancouver Canucks.

A Different Format?

The NHL’s current playoff format has been in place since the 2013-14 season. The league loves the bracket structure that keeps playoff paths clear from start to finish and allows for its annual Bracket Challenge contest, and it doesn’t mind that heavyweights can meet up early, as the Stars and the Minnesota Wild will do this year. When only half the league’s teams reach the post-season, there are bound to be some tough early matchups, no matter what the format.

This year, the more notable wrinkle is the disparity between the lowest-qualifying teams in each conference. The Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators are locked into the two Eastern Conference wild-card spots with 98 and 97 points, respectively, while the wild-card teams in the West are the Mammoth, at 90 points, and the Kings at 89.

Los Angeles also qualifies despite recording just 22 regulation-time wins all year — third-fewest in the entire league. If the NHL awarded three points for regulation wins, as we see in international competition and the PWHL, the San Jose Sharks, St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators would all have been boosted by their strong regulation win totals, as would the Capitals.

Despite this year’s outcome for his team, Wilson isn’t advocating for a change to the 3-2-1 points structure.

“We all understood the rules,” he said. “We understand the formatting. It’s not part of my job description to come up with with that stuff. I know some people feel strongly about that, but we’ve been playing this way for a while, and we’ve been in the playoffs a bunch of years and had good runs. So it is what it is. We’ll just keep doing our best to win as many games as possible and put yourself in a good spot.”

Ovechkin’s Swan Song?

With the Capitals out of the playoffs, will Tuesday’s game in Columbus be the last one in the NHL for the league’s all-time leading goal-scorer, Alex Ovechkin?

The 40-year-old, who reached 1,000 total goals in regular-season and playoffs this year, is an unrestricted free agent as of July 1. After leading his team in goals yet again this season, with 32, Ovechkin has said he’ll take the summer to decide whether this is the end for him.

No matter what happens, Wilson is awestruck by Ovechkin’s legacy.

“It’s been so many milestones, so many records,” Wilson said. “The way that he handles himself through it all has been so impressive to me — to be a superstar for that long, all the pressure and all the different hats he can wear. As a friend, as a teammate, it’s been incredible to see him deal with all that, and he does it with grace and class. He just continues to exceed expectations and become one of the greatest of all time and the best goal-scorer of all time and a legend of the game.”

Away from the national spotlight, Ovechkin’s impact in his local market over the last 21 years has also been massive.

“What he’s done for D.C. and Washington, D.C. hockey in the area is second to none,” said Wilson.

Last Sunday, Ovechkin and his career-long rival, Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, squared off for the 100th meeting of their careers, to the delight of fans on both sides.

“Him and Sid, the way they came in, they’ve had such a great rivalry,” Wilson said. “It’s been an honor to have that front-row seat for a part of it. He’s always been such a good leader and such a good friend to me. To see him become a dad and win a Stanley Cup and get the goals record — it’s been an absolute blast.”

The Capitals’ Future

Whether Ovechkin returns or not, the Capitals are already a team in transition. This year alone, they’ve seen important contributions from rookies Ryan Leonard (20 goals and 45 points) and Justin Sourdif (15 goals and 35 points). Late in the season, defender Cole Hutson has impressed with 10 points in 13 games and hulking 19-year-old Ilya Protas has shown that he’s cut from the same cloth as his teammate and brother, 25-year-old Aliaksei Protas, chipping in four points in his first three NHL games. There are more quality prospects in the pipeline.

At 32, Wilson is signed for five more years. In his younger days, he was best known for his physical presence and while that element hasn’t gone away, his game has evolved as he has matured. With one game remaining, he sits second behind Ovechkin in team scoring and has cracked the 30-goal plateau for a second-straight year.

“I’m at the point of my career where it’s fun to be a part of the youth coming in and having them succeed,” Wilson said. “It’s something that I’m taking a lot of pride in — making sure that I can help set those guys up for long, successful careers, just like the guys before me did for me.”

Great Clips Power Play Sweepstakes

While the Capitals won’t be in the playoff hunt this spring, Wilson will still get airtime as part of Great Clips’ Power Play Sweepstakes campaign alongside a former teammate, the newly retired T.J. Oshie.

“Fans can go online or go on their app to join the Power Play Sweepstakes,” Wilson said. “If you win, they’re gonna send five people to a Stanley Cup Final game, which is pretty sweet. And even if you don’t win, they’re taking a couple dollars off your haircut as part of the deal. It’s been a lot of fun. We got some acting in with T.J. and pushed our skills in that environment a little bit. It was a great thing to be a part of.”

Fans in the U.S. and Canada can learn more about the sweepstakes at www.GreatClips.com/Hockey.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com