Ovechkin's Kid Is Already Cooking In No. 91

Of course, every Caps highlight in 2026 comes laced with a little melancholy, because the conversation always drifts back to what those Ovechkin-era teams should have won. One Cup feels like grand larceny against history given how stacked those rosters were, and the variance argument is the one Caps fans will be making at bars for the next 40 years.

Eric Nathan

@BarstoolNate

I will go to my grave saying this was the worst case of sports variance possible. We all know how hard it is to win a Cup. The Caps win multiple Cups in the majority of timelines if you were able to run the sims. These Caps teams were amazing, but sports variance is very real.

So yeah, Sergei in 91 ripping breakaways is cute content today. But if the bloodline plus the Fedorov number plus the obvious scoring touch all keep tracking, the loophole talk is only going to get louder. D.C. could use a redo, and the universe might already be lining one up.