I initially wrote this in December 2022, when Ovechkin hit 800 goals. He's now 9 behind Gretzky, 10 away from passing him. Of course, I'm stupidly writing this as Ovechkin is playing in a game he's already scored a goal in, so those numbers in the last sentence could be dated literally in real time. The weirdest part of the inevitable is somehow the chase has seemingly invigorated the Capitals. They were a team squarely on the downturn back in December 2022. They squeaked into the playoffs last year. This year, they've been incredibly a powerhouse. A good story early, but continued to be great through Ovechkin's missed month, and as he's returned. What was supposed to be a weird situation where Ovechkin was chasing Gretzky playing for a dog team turned out to be the opposite.
Ovehckin's season this season has been insane. He missed a month, but came back even better. He actually started the year super slow - two goals in his first 12 games. People panicking if he would get there. Then he basically became the same Ovechkin that pumped 50+ goals eight times. If he played a full healthy season, he probably gets 50 this year. At age 39. This isn't normal. Gretzky got to 894, but realistically he slowed way down the last few years of his career. You needed someone like Ovechkin - an ageless wonder - to break the record, since no one is ever getting a 90-goal season like Gretzky had.
There is now a decent chance it happens this season. It actually seems like ti will get national non-hockey-fan attention, especially off the heels of the incredible success for the NHL that was the 4 Nations Face Off. What better way to get people ready for the Stanley Cup Playoffs - especially this Devils fan writing this the same day it was announced Jack Hughes would miss the rest of the season needing shoulder surgery. The last "all time career" type record we've seen broken was LeBron passing Kareem in total points three years ago. This is bigger. This is basically the biggest career milestone record to be broken since Bonds beat Aaron - and this without the juiced allegations. If anything, it's the reverse - with Gretzky fattening up against the porous 1980s goalies.
I find it odd people think Wayne Gretzky will care. First and foremost, Gretzky is a huge hockey fan. Secondly, Gretzky was always more of a playmaker - he still has and will probably always have the assists record, and the points record. It was almost a laughable afterthought that "oh by the way, he also scored more goals than anyone". Well, soon it will be more goals than anyone except for a player created in a lab to score goals. We were all witnesses to the Ovechkin era.
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Why? Because we're living in a world where one of the main Wayne Gretzky records is going to be broken. Let's not lose sleep for Wayne, who will still hold basically all other records, and in a weird way, the goals record was the most "breakable". Connor McDavid can continue being as good as he is right now for another 15 yaers, and he isn't sniffing Gretzky's overall points record. He has to improve massively to touch Gretzky's season scoring record. The 894 was the record, but it was attainable. All you needed is a guy who could average 45 goals for 20 seasons (900 goals) - and somehow, we saw one.
Yes, Ovechkin had help for a NHL that while nowhere near the 80s level of offense, left the true dead puck era in Ovechkin's rookie year - granted Ovechkin's arrival itself was part of leaving that era behind. He also played his career in a world where players can age better due to advanced training, medicine and less head-hunting. I don't think those things outweigh Gretzky's edge of, you know, playing in the 80s, but still.
Case in point, when Gretzky finished his age 33 season, he had 803 goals. He played five more seasons and put up just 91 more gioals. Gretzky, as crazy as it sounds, "slowed down" (mostly in the goals department, he was still a point a game player those five seasons) and that opened the door for that 45x20 math to work.
But even all of that, it is still inconceivable that soimeone is about to just do this. We're about to see another huge career record go down, with LeBron set to pass Kareen;'s career scoring record fairly soon. But no one really cares about career records in the NBA. Similarly in the NFL, we've seen many players break what were career passing records, but the game fundamentally changed (more passing, more efficient passing, rules to inhibit defense) that it became inevitable. This was not inevitable. This took a unique talent. One talented enough that he;'s already pretty clearly the best goal scorer of all time, but good enoguh even so to get to 894.
Ovechkin's insane consistency was taken for granted, but also in a very Hank Aaron type way, it just adds up. When I say Hank Aaron, it's because Aaron notably never had 50 home runs in a season. He just had like 40 every year for nearly 20 years. Ovechkin did lead the league in goals nine times, but Gretzky had four seasons with more goals than Ovechkin's career high 65. Ovehckin just put up 50 like every year.
Yes, we can quibble with Ovechkin's defensive (in)ability - though at his best he was better on that side of the ice due to his speed and physicality. We can harangue him for just having a bunch of goals setting up in the same spot on the powerplay for a decade in a half - but if it's easy to do that, someone should have, you know, stopped him. We can do all those things, but at the end of the day, scoring a goal is by far the most consequential event in a hockey game, and he did it better, for longer, than anyone.
Ovechkin's goal scoring prowess shone from basically his first game and first season where he pumped in 50 goals and scored what is still maybe the most audacious goal I've ever seen, with his behind the back while falling down goal against Phoenix. But what's truly amazing is that is just has never stopped. It took a while for the hockey world to come around to him as a winner, a complete player, and all that stuff, but he got his Cup, so because of that we can luckily cut out the noise and just focus on hsi bonkers stats.
It took this 800 chase to both conceptualize how you get to 894, and you do it by just doing what he did. His goal totals read as close to say Aaron's home runs, or the Spurs season win totals. 50-46-65-56-50 in his first five season. Then came that weird "down" shift, where he still had 32-38 goals. He then had 32 in 48 games in the lockiut shortened 2012-13 season. When they came back the next year, the next period of absolute bananes begun: 51-53-50-33-49-51-48. Hard to understand the random 33, but the others were all stupid good.
Ovechkin is going to break Gretzky's record. He's going to pass Gordie Howe pretty soon. Again it is so good that he;'s already won that Cup so no one can throw that at him. It took a while to get here but I am relieved it seems the hockey record is ready for this, mainly because Wayne is. I expect no one to be more happy, more astonished and more gracious than Wayne himself that someone finally broke this record. It was the one that could be had, and we finally found the guy to average 45 goals over 20 seasons to do it.
