{"id":75925,"date":"2025-07-19T17:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/75925\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:33:09","slug":"flyers-defenseman-egor-zamula-on-having-to-defend-alex-ovechkin-his-shots-break-bones-legs-it-is-difficult-to-find-a-way-to-contain-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/75925\/","title":{"rendered":"Flyers defenseman Egor Zamula on having to defend Alex Ovechkin: \u2018His shots break bones, legs. It is difficult to find a way to contain him.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Ovechkin<\/strong> is the greatest goal scorer in the history of the NHL, and his ability to put the puck in the net lives in the nightmares of many NHL defenders. Many of those defenders got the rare chance to line up on the same side as Ovechkin in the recent \u201cMatch of the Year\u201d in Russia<\/a>, a friendly game pitting stars from the NHL and KHL against each other.<\/p>\n

Egor Zamula<\/strong>, a 25-year-old rearguard for the Philadelphia Flyers, was one of those players to share in the 15-3 victory with Ovechkin. The young blueliner spoke with Sov-Sport after the game<\/a> about what it was like not to have to play opposite Ovechkin for once.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s the only joy, that you didn\u2019t have to play against him [on the penalty kill],\u201d Zamula told Sov-Sport\u2019s Nikita Plokhikh<\/a>, as translated by Google Translate. \u201cAnd you know who to pass to, who can score. His shots break bones, legs. We had a couple of defenders sit under his shots a year ago, two years ago, and they were all out for a long time. Therefore, before sitting down, you either need to do it correctly or think about how to intercept the puck.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to defend against Ovechkin? You see, for many years now, Sasha Ovechkin has been scoring almost every game, and it is difficult to find a way to contain him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zamula is far from the first to describe the legendary, sometimes dangerous power behind Ovechkin\u2019s shots, and despite heading into his age-40 season, that power doesn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere. According to NHL Edge Stats from this past season<\/a>, Ovechkin was among the forward leaders in top shot speed (98.96 miles per hour; 99th percentile) and average shot speed (67.84 mph; 97th percentile) and ranked second at the position in 90-plus mph shots (29).<\/p>\n

One of Ovechkin\u2019s former Washington Capitals teammates, Radko Gudas, spoke last March to Monumental Sports Network\u2019s Al Koken<\/a> about one of his prior run-ins with blocking an Ovechkin shot.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Gudas] also told me about a shot he took from Ovechkin underneath the right shoulder pad on his tricep,\u201d Koken recounted. \u201cHe said he looked at it after the game. \u2018Oh, there\u2019s a bruise.\u2019 He woke up the next morning, guys \u2014 the entire arm, black and blue. He said he learned a valuable lesson on how not to block an Alex Ovechkin shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a month prior to Gudas\u2019s comments, Ovechkin appeared to injure<\/a> Utah Hockey Club netminder Connor Ingram with a high, hard shot. The shot hit Ingram high in the chest, near the clavicle and throat, leading directly to a Pierre-Luc Dubois goal and Ingram\u2019s removal from the game.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin has also notably injured Tampa Bay Lightning defensemen Erik Cernak and Mikhail Sergachev with one-timers on the same power play<\/a>, broke Alex Tanguay\u2019s jaw with a slap shot<\/a>, and broke Kevin Klein\u2019s arm with a hard wrist shot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even goaltenders who have been teammates with Ovechkin aren\u2019t spared, as Ilya Samsonov<\/a> and Vitek Vanecek<\/a> both can attest. Braden Holtby previously commented that Ovechkin has had to restrain his full power during practices so that he doesn\u2019t injure anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, we\u2019ve had our run-ins in the past,\u201d Holtby told NHL.com\u2019s Tom Gulitti in 2019<\/a>. \u201cI think that\u2019s why he doesn\u2019t do that too often anymore. I think he realizes how powerful it is and how dangerous it can be when your own teammate is in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, further proving his power, Ovechkin also won the All-Star Skills Hardest Shot competition with a 101.3 mph slap shot<\/a>. Of the 28 times the league has held the competition since 1990, Ovechkin is one of just three forwards to have won it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in the history of the NHL, and his ability to put…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":75926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-75925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114881102255313323","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}