Pierre-Luc Dubois on Alex Ovechkin's iconic belly flop after breaking the NHL goals record: '[It] wasn't what he wanted to do at all'

"Ice was bad today, so I fell,"

"I'm pretty sure it's a pretty cool moment. It was cool."

"The funniest thing about all this is that after he scored the goal, his celebration [the dive] wasn't what he wanted to do at all. He fell!"

"When he got up, we were all already on top of him, so he couldn't celebrate like he wanted to."

Alex Ovechkin became the NHL's all-time goals leader and celebrated by chest-first sliding onto the ice at UBS Arena, a moment later turned into Capitals rally towels. Ovechkin said the ice was bad and he fell rather than intentionally diving, and teammate Pierre-Luc Dubois corroborated that the dive was accidental, noting that teammates swarmed him before he could celebrate as intended. Video shows Ovechkin falling after a power-play goal against Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin. Ovechkin finished the 2024-25 season with 897 goals and is poised to reach 900 in 2025-26. Dubois said the NHL is difficult, with varying opportunities across teams and coaches.

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