By Joe Pohoryles
The Washington Capitals are fully entrenched in a playoff battle with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Florida Panthers, and while the fight to advance and keep their season alive is still going, Alex Ovechkin’s fight to advance up the all-time ranks of NHL goals is done for another year.
Despite missing the last three games of the regular season, Ovechkin ended the season with 50 goals, tying him with Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy for the most 50-goal seasons in his career (9). If it weren’t for the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, where he had 48 goals through 68 games, he would likely be all alone at the top with 10.
His career total now sits at 780, and he needs 115 more to pass Gretzky for the all-time record. Needing 33 goals per season entering the first year of his new contract, Ovechkin now needs to average 29 (technically 28.75) over the next four seasons.
While scoring 50 goals next season might be a stretch (though he’s proven plenty doubters wrong before), reaching 40-45 goals in 2022-23 would be massive. If he can finish with 45, a mark I think can be expected assuming he plays most of the season, he will have at least three seasons to score the remaining 70 (which is just 23-24 goals per season).
As far as when he’ll finally reach 895, as of now I expect him to do it nine (9) games into the 2025-26 season. This is subject to change, as it’s nearly impossible to project that far into the future, but if Ovechkin scores 45 next year, 35 in 2023-24 and 30 in 2024-25, that will leave him with 890 goals entering 2025-26.
Maybe the drop-off from 45 to 35 is too steep, but a drop-off will be come eventually as Ovechkin reaches his 40s. I still believe 30 goals in an 82-game season is a realistic benchmark for a 39-year-old Ovechkin in 2024-25.
If that all happens, and Ovechkin really needs just five goals entering his age-40 season, he’ll have plenty of runway to break it in that final year of his contract, but it should come pretty quickly.
Number of games it took Ovechkin to reach 5 goals each season over the past 5 years
| Season | Games to reach 5 goals |
| 2017-18 | 2 |
| 2018-19 | 6 |
| 2019-20 | 7 |
| 2020-21 | 8 |
| 2021-22 | 5 |
Over the past five seasons, it’s taken Ovechkin an average of six games (rounding up from 5.6) to reach five goals at the beginning of the season. If we take out the outlier of 2017-18, where he had seven goals after two games, the average rises to 6.5 games (or seven).
Assuming his pace slows down by the time he reaches 40, that average is bound to go up, which is why I’m circling around nine games into that season.
Of course, all these specific calculations and estimations are pointless at this stage– we don’t know if he’ll need exactly five goals entering that final contract year. He may wind up being 15-20 goals away, or he could even have the record by that point.
The overall point of this, I believe, is that this 50-goal season lengthened his runway significantly. While many people (myself included) have believed for a long time that Ovechkin will get the record, the COVID-shortened seasons and concerns about slowing down with age threw a real wrench into the progress.
After this year, needing to average under 30 goals per season after becoming the oldest player to score 50, and after taking regression into account, we can reasonably expect Ovechkin to break the record with plenty of room to spare in his current contract (almost a full season).
Now, if there’s an injury or another season-stoppage down the line, it won’t necessarily kill his chances (knock on wood). And even if he is just short by the end of his contract, we can reasonably expect him to sign on for one last year to get it done, so we aren’t facing a strict deadline either.
Even if he never notches another 50-goal season again, this year’s 50 truly was the magic number.
Oh wait, we’re not done?
Turns out 50 is the magic number in more than one way, and since we’re in the thick of the Stanley Cup Playoffs’ first round, this one has to do with the postseason.
We all know that playoff goals don’t count towards the all-time goals record (or at least now we do, since I just explained it), but they do have its own category. With his wide open snipe during Game 3, Ovechkin tied Patrick Marleau for most playoff goals by an active player (72). Marleau was not on an NHL team this season, but is still technically active.
The goal also brought him exactly 50 behind Gretzky (122) on the all-time playoff goals list, where Gretzky also leads all-time. Ovechkin sits tied for 14th on that list, and definitely won’t be passing Gretzky in this category.
Gretzky played 208 NHL playoff games, and Ovechkin has played just 144. Still, Gretzky’s postseason goals per game rate (.587) is higher than Ovechkin’s (.500) anyway.
However, for those who believe postseason goals should be lumped into the all-time NHL goal record, Ovechkin could still claim the combined crown even if he doesn’t catch up on the postseason list.
Gretzky’s 894 regular season goals plus 122 in the postseason make 1,016 total. Ovechkin’s combined total of 852 puts him 165 away from passing him, which is the distance he started with in the main list this season.
If Ovechkin keeps up his progress in the regular season, and keeps chipping in playoff goals (even if the Caps don’t make it far), he could have close to a full season in 2025-26 to increase his lead in the regular season tally. This would make up for his deficit in the postseason category, and could ultimately give him the combined regular season/postseason record as well.
Another extended postseason run (this year? Pretty please?) would go a long way as well, but it’s still doable if they continue exiting in the first round, or even miss the playoffs entirely. It would likely require Ovechkin playing beyond his current contract, but should only take a year or two more at most if that’s the case.
We have a handful of years to continue projecting, but looking back at 2021-22, it was a resounding success. After just 24 goals in 45 games last year, Ovi needed a bounce back year to get back on track, and at age 36, it wasn’t a guarantee.
With four years left in his contract, Ovechkin has lowered his necessary yearly average to under 30 goals. He has never scored fewer than 30 goals in a full 82-game season in his entire career. The chase for Gretzky is in great shape, and we can all be thankful.
Now let’s beat Florida.
Cover Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports
The Wildcard 