SIMMONS: Ovechkin’s breathtaking goal record may never be broken again
Washington Capitals sniper’s 895 career goals -- and counting -- a breathtaking record for the ages that should transcend sport
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The number still seems so impossible, so improbable — 895 and counting.
The clock still ticks, as does Alexander Ovechkin’s heartbeat. The record-breaking number is 895 for now, the number of goals Ovechkin has scored in his 20 seasons playing for the Washington Capitals in the NHL.
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This is a record for this and any other generation, a breathtaking record for the ages that should transcend sport. This is Hank Aaron beating Babe Ruth in home runs on a Monday night in April before Barry Bonds ruined the record forever. This is Emmitt Smith rushing for almost 2,000 yards more than Walter Payton. This is LeBron James passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and never aging.
This is ours. Our game. Our hockey. We grasp onto the greatest of records. This is the sport we care most about. History being made before our very eyes. The kind of history that may stand today and forever.
Finding any kind of real perspective for the 895 goals Ovechkin has scored isn’t easy. He has played the same number of years as Sidney Crosby and is 273 goals ahead of Captain Canada.
He hasn’t necessarily been the better player of the two. But clearly he is the better goal-scorer and better than anyone and everyone who has ever shot the puck. The best goal-scorer in this season’s NHL, Leon Draisaitl, has managed 399 goals in the first 11 seasons of his career in Edmonton. His teammate, the apparent world’s greatest player in Connor McDavid, has scored 361 times over 10 seasons. That’s 534 goals fewer than Ovechkin has managed. That makes catching Ovechkin as seemingly impossible as it was catching Gretzky 20 years ago.
Auston Matthews, the only current NHL player with two 60-goal seasons, is one goal behind Draisaitl for his career. But still, he’s 497 goals behind the all-time leader. For Matthews to ever come close to the record, he would have to play a minimum of 20 seasons, he would have to remain healthy, he would have to continue scoring at the pace which has been near the all-time greats.
There’s too many have-tos in all of this. This is how far away the record must have seemed for Ovechkin once upon a time, when his numbers began to dip in 2017. But the dip turned out to be just a blip on his way to catching and passing The Great One. Ovechkin has scored at a level late in his career in a way that’s really never been done before.
In Gretzky’s final four seasons, he scored just 80 goals. He had gone from goal-scorer and playmaker to just playmaker par excellence. He retired at the age of 38, scoring a career low of nine goals in his final NHL campaign.
Ovie turns 40 in September. At the age of 39, he already has 42 goals. At 38, he scored 31. He may be slowing down in some ways — speed-wise, physically — just not scoring-wise. He still has the knack. In the last four seasons he’s played, he’s scored 165 goals.
And of the current NHL goal-scorers who are anywhere close to Ovechkin, they really aren’t. Aside from Crosby, who is second, Steven Stamkos is at 579 — that’s 316 behind. After that, there’s Evgeni Malkin, drafted one pick after Ovechkin, at 513 goals career. The best scorers of this generation are 300-plus goals behind the new record holder.
Their career numbers are fabulous. They’re just not move-the-needle numbers. They’re just not history-making numbers.
Not that long ago, I asked Gretzky if his World Hockey Association goals should count along with his NHL goals — which would bring his scoring total to 940 and Gordie Howe’s total to 975.
In football, the AFL statistics now count as NFL statistics. In hockey, there is separation between NHL goals and WHA goals. Gretzky contends that is proper. “If more than four teams had come to the NHL from the WHA, I’d say yes, the goals should count. But it was only four teams. It wasn’t really a merger the way the NFL and AFL merged into one league. We joined an existing league.”
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Bobby Hull scored 913 goals when you combine the NHL and WHA numbers. Ovechkin would likely pass that number if he chooses to play as a 40-year-old. But he will likely never get to Howe’s combined number of 975. And really that doesn’t matter. The all-time list shows Ovechkin with the most goals, followed by Gretzky, Howe and Jaromir Jagr.
It shows Ovechkin as the greatest goal-scorer to ever play in the NHL, having done so in an era when goal-scoring became more difficult than it had ever been before.
We’ve watched it from the beginning to record-breaking Sunday. We’ve been fortunate to witness so much history. A history we may never know again.
The record has been broken. It may never be broken again.
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