WASHINGTON — This is dizzying, going from “You’ve got to be kidding me; Alex Ovechkin is leading the NHL in goals at 39” to the previously unheard-of “Alex Ovechkin is on injured reserve with a lower leg injury.”

He scored five goals in two days to grab the hockey world by the throat.

He went down after a leg-to-leg hit Monday night in Utah and could not skate thereafter. Feels like one of those pucks from the left faceoff circle — the howitzers Ovechkin has used to make heads spin for two decades — just whizzed by. This is whiplash.

Ovechkin’s broken leg — which is expected to cause him to miss four to six weeks — is also flat jarring.

He is famously unbreakable. For the first time in his career, he is broken. In his 20th season, he was on an absolute heater — 13 goals in 11 games to take the league lead. In his 20th season, he is now dealing with the most significant injury of his career.

He is not lost for the season. But a Washington Capitals team that woke up Wednesday unexpectedly sitting atop the Metropolitan Division now must deal with a situation it has never known: finding its way without Ovechkin for weeks, at least.Marvel at him one minute. Miss him — and miss him dearly — the next.

“I mean, he’s our captain,” forward Tom Wilson said. “He leads the way every night and has been a superstar that carries the load for so many years that, when he’s out, we got to make sure we’re playing to the standard that he would appreciate.”

That standard, early this season, was being reset.

For the greatest goal scorer in history (yeah, I know, that’s a debatable take but a defensible one), that’s both mind-blowing and true. Ovechkin’s 15-goals-in-the-first-18-games barrage was a driving force behind the revamped Capitals’ surge — a surge that just concluded with a three-game, four-day trip out west that somehow yielded convincing wins against Colorado, Vegas and Utah.

So Ovechkin’s absence is about how these Capitals compensate and keep pressing forward in an enormously promising season.

That’s important for Washington as a city, for the Capitals as a team. What’s important for the sport: How does this affect his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record?

That conversation, to this point, has already flip-flopped. Entering the season, he needed 42 goals to pass Gretzky’s 894. The thinking here: “People his age don’t score 42 goals in a season. Wait till next year — if you’re lucky.”

By Monday night, when he ripped in his 15th of the season to get on a — blink your eyes clear for this one — 68-goal pace, it was fair to start looking at the calendar and wondering when to buy tickets to see No. 895. (For the record: At that pace, which we would label as absolutely unsustainable if we were talking about someone other than Alex Ovechkin, he would have passed Gretzky in or around the Caps’ 51st game — Jan. 30 at Ottawa.)

Now? Well, we don’t know. Coach Spencer Carbery was clear at Wednesday’s practice that the injury is not season-ending. The vibe among players was that it’s a bummer — a major bummer — but a temporary one.

“He’ll be back,” said defenseman John Carlson, Ovechkin’s teammate for 16 seasons. “All we can hope for is that it’s quick and he’s healthy as you can get.”

By this point, we should have all moved past doubting Ovechkin. I first made that mistake in the spring of 2017, after another second-round playoff flameout against Pittsburgh that felt like a kneecap to the Caps and their captain. Ovechkin’s response: a league-leading 49 goals in 2017-18, the Stanley Freaking Cup and 148 goals over the next three seasons, even though the last was truncated by the coronavirus pandemic.

It was easy, too, to write off Gretzky’s record as unreachable as recently as a year ago, when Ovechkin had just eight goals through 43 games. His response: 23 goals the rest of the way to pull No. 99 back into his sights.

So consider the following not an overriding doubt but a reality check: Whatever the ailment, it’s almost certain Ovechkin has never had to overcome an injury of this magnitude. And whatever the ailment, healing is easier at 29 than 39.

Ovechkin’s durability is legendary. In 15 of his 19 seasons to this point, he has missed four or fewer games. Suddenly, he’ll be out at least that many — and probably more.

That has an effect on tactics, sure. But it has an emotional impact, too.

“Energy levels, enthusiasm, communication — all the stuff goes into what you’re talking about,” Carbery said. “So that goes back to: I think we all need to do more in those departments. Because you’re right: He does bring a lot of infectious energy, positivity — on the road when you feel like you can’t muster up something, when you feel like, ‘Geez, my legs are really heavy today.’ He helps in that department — bring you up and bring you into the fight and drag you into a game where you might not have your best.”

That’s a lot to lose on the ice.

That’s a lot to lose in the dressing room.

That’s a lot to lose — for hockey.

For 17 games and two periods, Alex Ovechkin was the best story in his sport.

With one collision, that changed. The pursuit of Gretzky is on hold.

Can he get still get to 895 goals?

Sure.

But if there was something that would move us from the certainty of “When will he do it?” to the murkiness of “Can he do it?” — it just happened.

Doubt him at your own peril.

But fingers crossed that weeks don’t become months.