Alex Ovechkin did some light skating on Monday for the first time since he fractured his left fibula in a match with the Utah Hockey Club on November 18th. The Washington Capitals announced on November 21 that Ovechkin would miss 4-6 weeks after his leg collided with Utah forward Jack McBain.  But, he skated before practice on Monday while Capitals athletic trainer Jason Serbus observed from the bench. “It was nice to see,” coach Spencer Carbery said. “Just the first step. No timeline updates or anything like that. This is just a step in the progression of him coming back.” Ovechkin will miss his seventh match in a row when Washington welcomes San Jose Sharks at Capital One Arena on Tuesday. This will make it his longest absence, passing the six straight he missed when he had an upper body injury from November 4-14, 2009.  The injury halted his race to beat Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 goals. He was leading the league with 15 goals in 18 matches this year. Before his injury, Ovechkin raised his 868 and closed within 27 goals of passing Gretzky.  Washington is 4-2-0 without Ovechkin, including victories in each of its past four matches. “I just don’t think we rely on any one player,” forward Lars Eller said. “We’re a four-line team — four lines, three (defense) pairs, two goalies — like a really complete team in terms of getting contributions from everybody in different ways. That’s our strength.”

The National Hockey League announced on Monday that Twenty One Pilots will give a rare intermission performance at the 2025 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series. The concert will be at a match between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings at Ohio Stadium.  Twenty One Pilots are presently on a world tour to promote their seventh studio album, Clancy. Lead vocalist for the Pilots, who is an alumni of Ohio State University, and drummer Josh Dun will come home to perform during the slated match. Parts of their mini concert will feature in the game broadcast.  To mark the band’s return to their hometown, Ohio State University students will get the chance to use their .edu email address to buy specially priced $20.99 tickets. They can get tickets through the Ohio State Account Manager. OSU students will get more details from the Ohio State Athletics Ticket Office via email.  Members of the general public can buy tickets to the Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series at Ticketmaster.com. Ticketmaster is the official marketplace of the NHL®. Fans can go here for a seamless transaction.  NHL Network™ and NHL.com will provide live coverage from the Series. They will broadcast the moments leading up to and after the Blue Jackets and Red Wings match. Similarly, NHL Social™ will cover all social media platforms, and start a trend with the hashtag NHL #StadiumSeries.  Fans can find more information on the NHL Stadium Series here.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer interested in Roki Sasaki. Los Angeles first noticed Sasaki when his Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Chiba Lotte Marines posted him.  Jim Bowden from the Athletic has weighed in on the deal and what went wrong with it. Based on his discussions with sources from the MLB, Bowden believes that it is “unlikely” the Dodgers will sign Sasaki. And he gave some reasons for that.  The major issue is money. Since Sasaki is below 25 and has not completed six years of service in a foreign major league, he is under the MLB’s international amateur signing bonus pool rules. This means that he will not get up to the $325 million contract that Yoshinobu Yamamoto got last season. Instead, the value of Sasaki’s contract will be hampered by what a club has in its bonus pool. That could be somewhere close to $7 million if he waits to sign until after January 15. That is when every team’s bonus pool will be refilled for the beginning of the 2025 international signing period.  According to Bowden, one way for Sasaki to make more money outside his contract is through endorsements. But this is the problem with a Sasaki vs Dodgers contract.  “In Los Angeles, [Sasaki would] be in the shadow of both [Shohei] Ohtani and Yamamoto, which would lessen his endorsement ceiling,” Bowden wrote. Conversely, if the 23-year-old signs with the San Diego Padres, he would share a club with Yu Darvish. This “could potentially maximize his endorsements in Japan, positioning himself as a rival to the Dodgers’ Ohtani and Yamamoto rather than a teammate of theirs.” Moreover, a large part of Japanese media cover the Los Angeles Dodgers daily, and per Bowden, “that level of attention is not the best situation for a young, developing pitcher.”  Los Angeles is known for its exceptional approach to training young pitchers. But Bowden says that clubs like the Padres, Tampa Bay Rays, New York Mets, and Atlanta Braves also have fantastic pitching development programs. This curbs any leverage the Dodgers might have.  “Based on what I’m hearing,” Bowden wrote, “I think the Padres, Rays, Mets and Braves are all more likely to sign Sasaki than the Dodgers — and several other teams will be in the mix.”