Nicklas Backstrom during a game at the Verizon Center in October 2011. (Photo by choofly)
Perhaps one of the more subtle stings of the Nationals being eliminated from the Major League Baseball playoffs is that anyone who was hoping to shift their attention from baseball to hockey is in a bit of a void right now. The National Hockey League remains hopelessly mired in a labor dispute, with owners locking out their players and no apparent end in sight. So, instead of transferring our #saditude into earnest hopes for the Washington Capitals, we’ll just have to eat our feelings.
In the mean time, some of the Capitals’ top players are playing pro hockey, just not around these parts. Nicklas Backstrom, the team’s starting center, signed a contract yesterday with Dynamo Moscow, one of the powerhouse teams of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League.
Backstrom signed with Dynamo yesterday and quickly boarded a flight to Moscow, the Swedish news agency SVT reported. Backstrom and some of his Caps teammates had been working out around Washington in case an NHL season actually happens, but with the stalemate between owners and players only growing staler, it appears he found an escape hatch.
And Backstrom is hardly the only Caps star to head east. Alexander Ovechkin has been playing for Dynamo since the beginning of the KHL season, and has said that even if the NHL gets its act together, he might just stay with the team he grew up cheering for.
The latest round of talks between NHL owners and their players collapsed yesterday after owners rejected the players’ union’s proposals for a 50-50 split of league revenue. In the mean time, if you want to see Backstrom and Ovechkin take the ice, flights this evening from Dulles International Airport to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport begin at $1,420 according to a Kayak search. You’ll arrive just in time to see Dynamo take on crosstown rival Atlant Moscow Oblast at Megasport Arena tomorrow at 5 p.m. Moscow time, of course.
