Flyers defenseman Egor Zamula on having to defend Alex Ovechkin

Alex Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in the history of the NHL, and his ability to put the puck in the net lives in the nightmares of many NHL defenders. Many of those defenders got the rare chance to line up on the same side as Ovechkin in the recent “Match of the Year” in Russia, a friendly game pitting stars from the NHL and KHL against each other.

Egor Zamula, a 25-year-old rearguard for the Philadelphia Flyers, was one of those players to share in the 15-3 victory with Ovechkin. The young blueliner spoke with Sov-Sport after the game about what it was like not to have to play opposite Ovechkin for once.

“Yes, that’s the only joy, that you didn’t have to play against him [on the penalty kill],” Zamula told Sov-Sport’s Nikita Plokhikh, as translated by Google Translate. “And you know who to pass to, who can score. His shots break bones, legs. We had a couple of defenders sit under his shots a year ago, two years ago, and they were all out for a long time. Therefore, before sitting down, you either need to do it correctly or think about how to intercept the puck.

“How to defend against Ovechkin? You see, for many years now, Sasha Ovechkin has been scoring almost every game, and it is difficult to find a way to contain him.”

Zamula is far from the first to describe the legendary, sometimes dangerous power behind Ovechkin’s shots, and despite heading into his age-40 season, that power doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. According to NHL Edge Stats from this past season, Ovechkin was among the forward leaders in top shot speed (98.96 miles per hour; 99th percentile) and average shot speed (67.84 mph; 97th percentile) and ranked second at the position in 90-plus mph shots (29).

One of Ovechkin’s former Washington Capitals teammates, Radko Gudas, spoke last March to Monumental Sports Network’s Al Koken about one of his prior run-ins with blocking an Ovechkin shot.

“[Gudas] also told me about a shot he took from Ovechkin underneath the right shoulder pad on his tricep,” Koken recounted. “He said he looked at it after the game. ‘Oh, there’s a bruise.’ He woke up the next morning, guys — the entire arm, black and blue. He said he learned a valuable lesson on how not to block an Alex Ovechkin shot.”

Only a month prior to Gudas’s comments, Ovechkin appeared to injure Utah Hockey Club netminder Connor Ingram with a high, hard shot. The shot hit Ingram high in the chest, near the clavicle and throat, leading directly to a Pierre-Luc Dubois goal and Ingram’s removal from the game.

Ovechkin has also notably injured Tampa Bay Lightning defensemen Erik Cernak and Mikhail Sergachev with one-timers on the same power play, broke Alex Tanguay’s jaw with a slap shot, and broke Kevin Klein’s arm with a hard wrist shot.

Even goaltenders who have been teammates with Ovechkin aren’t spared, as Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek both can attest. Braden Holtby previously commented that Ovechkin has had to restrain his full power during practices so that he doesn’t injure anyone.

“Oh, we’ve had our run-ins in the past,” Holtby told NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti in 2019. “I think that’s why he doesn’t do that too often anymore. I think he realizes how powerful it is and how dangerous it can be when your own teammate is in there.”

In 2018, further proving his power, Ovechkin also won the All-Star Skills Hardest Shot competition with a 101.3 mph slap shot. Of the 28 times the league has held the competition since 1990, Ovechkin is one of just three forwards to have won it.