ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals have rarely had to go without Alex Ovechkin over his 20-season NHL career. Ovechkin has missed just 59 games over the last two decades, proving remarkably resilient even as he’s gotten older.

Now, the Caps will have to adjust to playing without their captain. Ovechkin sustained a lower-leg injury Monday night against the Utah Hockey Club: though head coach Spencer Carbery confirmed it wasn’t a season-ending injury, he will be out week-to-week.

Ovechkin’s injury cost Washington not only the league’s leading goal-scorer, but a key part of the team’s locker room. As the Caps prepare to hit the ice without him for the first time this season, they know it will be hard to fill the void.

“I don’t want to say just like any time else, but there’s nothing really you can do at this point besides trying to find ways to get through it,” John Carlson said Wednesday. “He’s a big presence, he’s a big leader, he’s a big momentum changer in games or whatever it is, so we’re going to need other people to step up. That’s no secret to anybody in terms of anybody that goes down, but certainly a guy with that presence. There will be a lot of moving parts to pick up the bits and pieces that are irreplaceable.”

Even for those who have played alongside Ovechkin for years, seeing him hurt is an unfamiliar sight. Just 35 of his absences have been injury-related — an average of less than two games per season — and he’s never missed more than six games in a row.

“It’s weird,” Tom Wilson said. “As long as I’ve been here, he’s just kind of been– it seems like he’s in every night.”

Wilson was one of the first to hear the news, returning to the locker room late in the third period after fighting Jack McBain, whose collision with Ovechkin caused the injury. Even Wilson, who has played 12 seasons with Ovechkin, had hardly seen him seriously hurt.

“I was talking to O and got the news, and then kind of went to talk to some of the other guys, and we were sitting there saying like, ‘This is weird. Like, it’s unbelievable that he’s actually hurt,’” he said. “It’s one of those things where like, he’s going to miss games? It’s new to me.

“He doesn’t go out there and just coast around; he’s played for 20 years every shift, running over guys and skating. You know, he’s a power forward, the best goal scorer ever maybe, and he’s a power forward that plays the game really hard. It’s been amazing, I’m sure he’s going to be back stronger than ever and flying around soon. So it sucks, it was kind of a dim ending to a great road trip, but we’ll rally and hold things together here until he’s back pretty soon.”

The injury came amid one of Ovechkin’s hottest streaks in recent memory. Before colliding with McBain, he had scored in five straight periods, notching a hat trick against the Vegas Golden Knights and another two goals against Utah. That gave Ovechkin 15 goals in 18 games and put him on a 68-goal pace before getting hurt. And with him just 26 goals behind Wayne Gretzky for the all-time record, Ovechkin’s scoring frenzy became one of the biggest stories in the NHL.

“You know when goal-scorers start scoring, it’s dangerous,” Carlson said. “I think there was a bit of that in the downs that everyone was feeling about it too, of course. We see him coming to the rink every day, we know what’s at stake. You never want anyone to get injured, but there’s a lot to it and certainly he was playing his best hockey in years.”

Wilson acknowledged the extra sting of seeing that hot streak cut short, both for Ovechkin and for everyone around him.

“[Ovechkin is doing] pretty good,” he said. “I think it was emotional at first, right? To be completely honest, I come into the room, he’s the hottest guy in the league, he’s chasing something bigger than hockey. I think everyone in the hockey world just feels that bit of letdown, that emotion that you’re just pulling for him and he’s putting everything he has into it. He feels all that pressure. The whole world of hockey is just rooting him on.

“So to come in there and see that he was hurt, it hurt a little bit as a teammate, but at the end of the day, that’s hockey. It’s part of the gig, stuff happens and guys bounce back from injuries, and he’s going to do that same.”

Still, as both Wilson and Jakub Vrana pointed out, injuries are always part of the game. After finding win after win for most of the season so far, the Caps will now need to prove their mettle against their largest challenge so far.

“I think we’re going to face the reality,” Vrana said. “We’re a strong group here. I mean, we’re going to face it — guys are going to get injured. Sometimes it’s not going to go your way during the season. We prepare for that. We prepare for adversity and I think we have a strong group here. And obviously he’s a hell of a player and a big piece of this team. Obviously, it’s hard to — he’s our captain and everything. But at the same time, it is what it is. And we’re going to prepare on winning games without him.”

Though Ovechkin’s injury is obviously a major blow, the Capitals are in an otherwise good place. They currently rank second in the NHL with a 13-4-1 record, behind only the record-setting Winnipeg Jets, and they’ve averaged more goals per game (4.33) than any other team. That gives them some wiggle room, certainly, but it also sets a standard for the Ovechkin-less Caps to live up to in his absence. Wilson, for one, thinks they’re up to the task.

“I think what’s gotten us success this year is the team game and every line having an identity, the group playing really well together and this doesn’t change that,” he said. “I think it puts more of an emphasis on us just continuing to do what we’ve been doing and working for the guy next to you.

“We want to play for him, too. He’s our captain, he leads the way every night and he’s been a superstar that carries the load for so many years that when he’s out we’ve got to make sure we’re playing to his standard that he’ll appreciate.”