The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Tarik El-Bashir on Ovechkin, Caps Injuries, and Wilson’s Olympic Push

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Tarik El-Bashir joins Jeff Marek from the rink to break down the Washington Capitals’ surge, highlighted by Alex Ovechkin heating up and driving scoring at age 40. Tarik updates the status of John Carlson, Charlie Lindgren, and Ryan Leonard, explains how the team has sustained its structure despite key injuries, and outlines what’s fueling the Caps’ 10-1-1 run. He also dives into Tom Wilson’s bid for a spot on Team Canada’s Olympic roster — what coaches value, how his physical profile fits the international game, and whether his overall impact is enough to earn serious consideration. With the Quinn Hughes trade chatter swirling, Tarik also weighs in on whether Washington could realistically enter the sweepstakes. A sharp, wide-angle look at a team suddenly back in the mix.#AllCaps #NHL #TheSheet #TarikElBashir #DailyFaceoff #AlexOvechkin #TomWilson #TeamCanadaSHOUTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Bauer: https://www.bauer.com/👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/caReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@FNBarnBurner🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We turn our attention now to one of the more interesting teams around the NHL who find themselves on top again. And Alexander Ovechkin finds himself trending towards another 40-goal season. And all types of rumors, which we talked about on the program yesterday, Rachel Dory kicked it off on social media about Quinn Hughes and perhaps interest from the Washington Capitals, amongst other teams. Here to break down what's happening with the Caps right now is a good friend from monumental sports, the one and only Terek L. Bashir, who joins me now on the sheet. Never a dull moment, Terek. And thanks for joining us from the rink. Always appreciate the ambient sound.

That always. By the way, my favorite sound at a rink is puck hitting crossbar. What's your favorite sound? Favorite sound? You know what? I like when the first guys get on the ice and they're warming up and just the blade. cutting into the ice. Yeah.

Always love that sound, especially when there's no one else in the building, and it's just, you get that really echo of the, I love that. And everyone's scrape is a little bit different, too. Oh, you know what? That sounds that always gets me going.

That's a really good point, too. You know what? I'll tell you what. So Dale Howardchuck, the late, great, one of the best centers, the NHLs ever had. So what he would do,

and I believe he did this with Mark Schifley, Tanner Pearson as well, what he used to do is when the kids were in junior, he would blindfold them and have them shoot at the net. And his idea was, and it makes sense. He said, like, look, when you get to the NHL, you don't have time to set up and dust the puck. Like, you've got to get it and go.

And you need to be able to shoot instinctively. And what he did is he trained himself by essentially shooting with his eyes closed. So he would blindfold the guys. And here's what I was told about Dale Howardchuck. I asked his son about it, too. And he's like, that was a freak. and this is true.

He could tell the difference. He would shoot at the net, and he could tell the difference in the sound of a goal post versus a crossbar. That's how, like, finally tuned Dale Howardchuck was to the sounds of what's happening around.

Do you have a thought on that one? That's amazing. I'm not sure. I could probably tell the difference between, like, the back bars, which have more of a thud and the cross. The crossbar and the folks, I think anyone can tell that difference.

But I'll tell you one thing about covering OV for the last 21 years. If you were to blindfold me and put me in a rink and say, who just skated by, I could tell you if it was Alex or if it wasn't Alex amongst the capitals. because the power with which he strides and he also stomps it's a very if you're standing at the glass and you know when I'm doing my sideline job sometimes yeah the way he stomps and when he goes by it just it's like a it's like a herd of elephants going by like it just it just speaks to just how powerful he is and how heavy he is yeah and how hard he you know when you see him in front of the net and you're watching a much larger d man trying to move him and he's not going anywhere yeah it's because at 250 pounds of beef there it's heavy and he plays heavy heavy on his dick

heavy on legs he's just hard to move and listen in this you know he's already got the we don't even call it the gretsky record anymore he's got the ovi record like that that's his i don't know that one's ever getting broken to me the the most the most intriguing or important part about that is that he stayed healthy enough in order and it's not as if he plays a soft game that to me is the point where i look at and i say that's why that record won't get broken is because you have to have X amount of 50 goals seasons in a row. You need to have that kind of health and no one's had it like Alexander Ovechkin.

But did you think, I mean, part of me is going like, okay, so it's the last year of his contract. He set the big record. He's got his Stanley Cup. Not that he's going to be like a lick the envelope year, but this might be like the foot off the gas season for Ovechkin. He's trending to 41 goals. Like, there's no foot off the gas here for Ovechkin.

You know, that's an interesting way of putting it. So look, this is a weird year for him, Jeff. He started out training camp hurt, right? He had maybe a lingering injury that happened during his summer training. And then he comes to the camp and he missed about a week, a week and a half. So he kind of started behind the eight ball. And that led to a slower by his own standards start to the year. But what we have seen here over the last dozen games or so, the capitals are 10, 1 in 1.

in their last 12 games. And look, you'll never guess who leads them in goals and points during that stretch. 40-year-old Alex Oaxkin, he's eating up. Yeah, sure, three were empty-nettors. I know what people say about the empty netters. Wayne Gretzky also had a lot of empty netters. Those are important goals at in-games. And Obie is one of the best who's ever done it.

And he scores them almost at will when he has that opportunity. But the fact he is finding ways to score in this age, amazing. Can we just pause for one second on empty netters? Like there have been, and I'm pretty sure if my memory serves correctly here, you know, Brett Hull would brag about like, oh, there's, I didn't get these on empty netters. Like, these are all goals. And, you know, part of me always says, like, dude, if your team is protecting the lead, you're not going out there.

Like, that's not the flex that you think it is. Like, to me, it's not just like you scored into an empty net. It's that we're protecting a one goal lead and the coach says, I want you on the ice. To me, it's not so much about the goal. It's about that player has earned the trust of a coach. So they're going to be out there in position to score the empty net goal. Kind of like it's not always the fight, but it's a threat of the fight that makes it important.

It's not the empty net goal. It's the fact that you're out there in position to get an empty net goal, which is the compliment there, which is when I hear players say, oh, I got all my goal, none of them are empty netters. I always say, that ain't the flex you think it is, bud, because you ain't getting out there to protect the lead. That ain't a compliment to you. And, you know, as long as we're talking about empty netters, you know, you and I have covered this league for a long time for me,

about 20 plus years. The change in philosophy on empty netters as well is something that's... Oh, yeah. I mean, a long time ago, if you were to ice the puck from 170 feet and not concludes the scoring, and now the puck's moving back in your own in, the coach has given you the what for? Oh, yeah. Now coaches go, you know what, shoot it from down there because it's going to stop play.

It's going to let everyone catch their breath. I can decide whether I have the matchup that I want. Everyone can kind of, you know, re-centered themselves and get focused for that next draw. Go ahead and fire from 175 feet. I don't care. And OV is one of the best to do it. John Carlson is really good at it. And former Capitol Lars Eller was another guy who had a radar. He could score 50 netters from the other end of the ring. It was always amazing to me. I can do the empty-night conversation all day long, but we got other things to get to. You mentioned John Carlson.

So injury update. Carlson, Leonard Lingren. What's the latest? Yeah, so John Carlson was out there today, looked pretty good. He's been out there for practice for the last few days. Upper body injury, something tells me he is going to be ready to go

for the Carolina game tomorrow here in D.C. He's been trending in that direction. I didn't get a chance to talk to him. I was taping something else, but I do have a feeling that he's going to play tomorrow. Charlie Lindgren, also trending in the right direction. He's on IR. He's probably still going to miss a few games here,

but that's okay because Logan Thompson is, you know, you might have heard of him. He's having a pretty good year again. Now, you do want to be careful of overworking Logan, but that's probably not an issue at this point, particularly since he also might be going to the Olympics. You've got to be wary of workload. with him, but that's the cards they're dealt right now. The bad news is on Leonard. I mean,

Ryan had such a great couple of weeks leading up to the injury. We all saw the Truba hit that resulted in a shoulder injury for him. He's out for a protracted amount of time. I think they're still trying to figure out how much time, but, you know, we're talking several weeks before we're going to see him again, which is just really, like I said, a shame because the rookie was really starting to find his game. I was digging in his analytics right before he got hurt. He was leading the team in offensive zone possession time. He was starting to hang on the pucks. He was on the first unit power play. He was really starting to get his C legs and then bam. He's out for, you know, several weeks. He'll be fine. He'll bounce back from this, but it certainly is putting a little crimp in

his momentum. What do you make of? And it's all started started yesterday afternoon. And by no means of the Washington Capitals, the only team, A, interested, obviously. And we're all sort of marrying Quinn Hughes here to the New Jersey Devils. But, you know, Detroit and Philadelphia and Carolina and the New York Rangers, et cetera, et cetera. Did it surprise you to see Washington in that, as part of that conversation, you know, Rachel Kreichick, Rachel Dory put it out there early. Elliot Friedman picked up on a little bit later on on the NHL network. I kind of look at these stories in a lot of ways as all general managers talk and they talk about all the players on the lineup every single day and this is a sort of extension of that but did it surprise you

how did it go over in in caps land when the name Quinn Hughes popped out well I've been getting a lot of text messages over the last few hours from people in the game and just people who are fans of the game you know there are only a handful of players out there when when that name gets mentioned with your team, everyone goes, uh-oh. Is this something that could happen? Look, I've covered this team for 20 plus years, Jeff, as you know, and the Capitals have a really thorough front office. If a player like Quinn Hughes, if his name is out there in trade rumors, they are going to make their calls and they are going to do their due diligence. I feel like this Capitals team, the championship window has been flung wide open once again after what they did last year.

You know, they rebuilt on the fly last off season before last off season, then had a great year last year of his contract. He desperately wants to have one more deep run. And look, we don't know what's going to happen to Ovi. He might resign. I don't know. I don't think he's made up his mind yet. But when you have a team that is playing the way they are, when you have gold tending that's playing the way it is, as a general manager, I mean, obviously not speaking for Chris Patrick, but you have to at least explore the opportunity to bring in another generational talent to maybe help get you over, you know, to push you over that line. The capitals have rebuilt their prospect pipeline to the point where they've got a lot of

really good players of that, they've got a lot of assets. If they want to, if they want to get into the sweepstakes, they absolutely can. It's funny, like right before we came on, I I was doing something else, and I only had a minute to go look at lines again. I was like, I don't even know. I mean, obviously, Quinn used to be number one D, man, but it's got Jacob Chickard. You got John Carlson. That's Marty Farivari. The left side looks good.

The left side looks good. I know. I did the same thing. I'm like, okay, so who's out? I know. And then, not to mention, you got Cole Hudson over at BU who's about to come in. And from everything that I've seen and heard, he's as good as Lane. I mean, it's an embarrassment of riches on the back end.

I don't have the stats right in front of me, Jeff, but I'm pretty sure the Capitals lead the league in goals and points from the back end, which they did last year, but they're doing it again this year. So 5-15 they've been outstanding. The P.K's coming around. Defensively, this team is really, really good, which is a long-winded way of saying, yes. I mean, if the opportunity is there, you have to try to figure it out.

Yeah, speaking of quality of. Hudson. Do you know the the skate lace story with the Hudson family? No, no. Okay, so you have a son that plays. So next time

your son's out there, get them to do with what the, what Lane and Cole's father used to do and the, and exactly Zach, Zach Hudson,

who's in, in Bakersfield. So he would have the, he would have this, like the, the Hudson's are elite on their, on their edges,

obviously. That's the one thing. And Paul's are really strong. You've seen him. Like, strong skater and he's like physically stronger than than lane is so dad would have them as a way to strengthen the ankles and work on their edges he'd have them practice without laces or untie their skates to skate i can't imagine that for one second even just thinking about it so when my kid

was younger um he's now at army west point playing hockey when when he was younger i do remember another dad saying, you know what, let the kids tie their own skates because they're not going to get them as tight as, you know, a grown, an adult can. And that's going to, in the long run, bring them their ankles and teach them to work their edges a little bit differently. And I want to say from like, I might have been the designated skate tire for the entire team when they were like double A like step in girls. By the time that we were eight or nine, we weren't allowed to go in the room who were parents. So the kids were tying their own. skates. And I do remember my son's skates were significantly looser than they had been before. And it didn't affect his skating. If anything, I really do think it strengthened his ankles. Yes. And by the way, it's not Zach. It's Quinn. Sorry, it's Quinn Hudson, who's in the Oilers organization. I just, I've got two boys that play and I keep saying like, Brody, T.J. Like, don't do up your skates. Go, go the next time you go to Schenney, don't do up your skates. Because they marvel at the hunting.

And one more thing, I remember being told when my son was maybe like six or seven, and I was carrying his bag in for a morning skill session. And, you know, a dad who had been in the game a long time said, don't do that. Don't do that. Like, he's too young to lift weights, but, you know, let him carry his own bag in. That makes him stronger. Okay. Makes him more independent, but it makes him stronger.

Yeah, no, 100%. And here's the other one. And this is just like a pet peeve. And I give goalies a pass on this. talking about like youth hockey here folks I'm with you about carrying the bag but when I see a kid that has a bag

with wheels has the rollers on it I always say that here's what I here's the saying and feel free to use this one Terrick next time you're around the ranks and for anybody watching or listening right now here's the saying

if your bag has wheels you don't go ahead man use it next time you're in the lobby of a rinkgo your bag has wheels you don't that that is fantastic yeah we never had a bag with wheels i was never i was never going to allow that so yes good yeah that's a really good that's a really bag has wheels you don't all right uh listen now you have a lot of important things to do i'll let you get back to it thank thanks as always for stopping by and parking some of your time for for me today. Great stories about your son

and caps and all of it. Really appreciate it, pal. Anytime, Jeff. Love the conversation. To the dark man You're trying to give me a little medicine I'm like now and that's fine I'm not against those methods but new

It's me and myself And now this is going to be fixing my mind I do on the bagger I turned on the music I do on the bag of music I do on the bag of I turn it on the music

It's enough They're about it. Sometimes losing. I've been on the days that we're wrong. In the dead dark night.