By: Joe Pohoryles
With the NHL well underway and this being the first “eighth” of the season, the Chasing Gretzky series is finally back.
Before the pandemic hit, Alex Ovechkin was a month removed from arguably the greatest scoring stretch of his career, and was contending with Boston’s David Pastrnak and Toronto’s Auston Matthews for the Rocket Richard Trophy, awarded to the league’s top goal-scorer. He ended up sharing the honor with Pastrnak, making it the Great Eight’s ninth Rocket Richard of his career.
Since the last installment of this series, a lot has happened.
The chance of Ovi catching up with Gretzky was already a tall task, but the past year has made the mountain a whole lot steeper to climb. Over a week ago, I wrote in to NBC Sports Washington’s JJ Regan for his Capitals Mailbag, which I strongly recommend reading every week if you’re a Caps fan.
I asked where he believes Ovechkin stands in the record chase now that the 2019-20 and ’20-21 seasons have been shortened. Taking into account the games he also missed for breaking COVID protocols, he has even less time do so. You can find the entire article here, but this is what he responded to my question:
I was amazed that Ovechkin made it seem possible he could catch Gretzky’s record of 894 goals, but that was as far as I was willing to go. I only ever saw it is possible, but never likely. Currently sitting at 707 goals, the margin was thin enough that a handful of games missed at the end of the 2019-20 season and the shortened 2021 season makes me think, sadly, that 894 is going to be out of reach.
This was published on Jan. 29, and Ovi now sits at 711 goals, but the sentiment remains. Of course, this is just one writer’s opinion, but it’s one I may have to agree with.
Prior to the pandemic, I strongly believed that if Ovi stayed in the NHL well into his late 30s, even past his 40th birthday, that the record would be his. Any major injury would throw him severely off course, but given the Russian Machine’s durability, that seemed like an afterthought.
Now, with all the games trimmed off, it’s as if Ovechkin has went through a significant injury. Despite my concerns, I will remain as hopeful as possible and continue to track the pace.
Ovechkin has five goals through eight games so far, giving him a 0.625 goals per game (GPG) rate to start the year. It’s a small sample size, but it falls pretty close to his career GPG of 0.613. While Ovechkin finished last season with 0.706 GPG, it’s promising to see his scoring output hasn’t slowed down relative to his entire career.
With the COVID issues running rampant through this team, it’s been difficult for the Great Eight to get into a true rhythm as well, so the sooner this team gets back to full strength, the better.
Ovi has tied and passed Caps legend Mike Gartner to take sole possession of seventh on the all-time list. Phil Esposito lies just ahead at 717, meaning Ovi needs just seven more goals to leapfrog into sixth.
The Caps have 44 games left on the schedule, and if Ovi continues his current rate of scoring, he’ll finish with 30 goals (if we factor in a few missed games). That would give him 736 all-time, sandwiched evenly between Marcel Dionne (731) and Brett Hull (741) for fifth on the all-time list.
Given the shortened schedule and his ability to tear it up in stretches, one could assume he’ll pick up the pace by the end of the season. With that in mind, 30 seems like a reasonable mark to reach this season, with any additional goals helping the overall cause. If everything goes as expected (and given the times, it probably won’t), Ovechkin should finish the regular season fifth on the list, and will be poised to pass Hull and Jaromir Jagr to have sole possession of third by the end of 2021-22.
2022-23 and beyond will be the real test. It’s a long way away, and I’ll continue tracking until then, but the two major hurdles will be the only two players to score 800 career goals. Ovechkin will be 37 entering that season, and while it’s difficult to predict what total he’ll be at, we can look at how the two ahead had been progressing.
Gordie Howe, entering age 37 season:
- 19 seasons – 1,259 games played – 595 career goals
- 29 goals in 70 games in age 37 season (moving up to 624)
Wayne Gretzky, entering age 37 season:
- 18 seasons – 1,335 games played – 862 career goals
- 23 goals in 82 games in age 37 season (moving up to 885)
Ovechkin will also be entering his 18th season by 2022-23, and — if we assume there will be a full 82 games for 2021-22 — should be hovering around 1,280 career games. Gretzky had slowed down significantly at this point in his career, and he retired after his age 38 season. Ovi is still scoring at a high rate, so the key to catching Gretzky will be playing well past 38.
It’s a good thing 43-year-old Zdeno Chara is now his teammate; he will hopefully share some of his tips for longevity.
Cover Photo Credit: Nick Wass/WiscNews
The Wildcard 