- Ovechkin explained the plunger he once taped to his stick at a Capitals practice
- The bit started with a Dale Hunter insult after a Washington loss in 2011-12
- Read below for the full quote and the video from Fanatics Fest NYC
Alex Ovechkin finally explained the plunger.
The Capitals captain sat down with the Powers brothers on the Empty Netters podcast at Fanatics Fest NYC, and one of the first things they wanted cleared up was the 2011-12 practice where he taped a toilet plunger to his stick and skated drills with it. Ovechkin traced the whole thing back to something Dale Hunter called him.
“Dale Hunter was my coach. After one game, I think we lost or something like that happened, and he called me a plumber. He’s like, ‘Ovi, you’re plumber. Yeah, you can score goals, but you’re a plumber.’ I didn’t know, like, what does it mean? So, next day, I asked my teammates, ‘What is plumber?’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to be a plumber.’ So I put the plunger. I tape it up with my stick and I skate maybe like two drills.”
One of the hosts asked whether Hunter was in on the joke or rolling his eyes. “No, it’s all about fun,” Ovechkin said.
Watch the full Fanatics Fest sit-down, with the plunger story landing around the 43-minute mark:
Hunter had taken over the Washington bench in November 2011, hired after Bruce Boudreau was fired at 12-9-1. The Capitals wanted their former captain to drag a run-and-gun group into a heavier defensive structure that might finally hold up in the spring.
It worked for one round. Washington knocked off the defending champion Bruins in seven games, then lost a second-round Game 7 to the Rangers. Hunter stepped away that May and went back to the OHL’s London Knights.
That season still comes up. Ovechkin told a Russian outlet in 2024 that Hunter was “a coach purely for defensemen” and that he and Alexander Semin would end up parked on the bench watching hockey whenever the Caps had a lead.
His ice time says the same thing. Ovechkin averaged 19:48 in 2011-12, the only time in his first seven NHL seasons he sat under 20 minutes a night. He cleared 20 again in each of the next four years once Hunter was gone.
Fourteen years later, the plumber sits at 929 goals, 758 assists and 1,687 points through 1,573 games, and he is headed into a 22nd NHL season in Washington.
Catch No. 929, the most recent goal of his career:
