By Joe Pohoryles
It could happen tonight.
Alex Ovechkin, shortly after becoming the third player in NHL history to reach 800 career goals, could potentially tie and pass Gordie Howe (801) for second on the all-time list. Poetically, it would be against the Detroit Red Wings, the team Howe played with for 25 years.
This edition comes later in the month than usual. I could lie and say I was waiting for Ovechkin to pass 800 or something, but the truth is I just wrapped up final exams, and free time to sit and write this out has been hard to come by.
In any case, here we are. Ovechkin, who was named First Star of the Week, scored a hat trick against the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 13 to reach 800 in style. Last month, I predicted he would eclipse 800 between Dec. 23-31, while settling on Dec. 29 against the Ottawa Senators.
Instead, he decided to ramp up the pace, scoring 12 goals across 17 games since Nov. 8 — a white hot .706 goals per game rate. He’s gone goalless in his last two games since hitting 800, which puts him at .632 since Nov. 8. However, he’s at a total of .606 for the season so far, so the pace has still been higher.
If Ovechkin plays the same number of games he did last year (77), he’s on pace for 46 goals. If he remains on a .632 pace for the rest of the year, he’ll wind up with 47-48. With another big boost, 50 goals isn’t out of the question.
However, if he winds up with 45, he will finish the season with 825 goals and will be just 70 goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky. That would mean averaging 23.3 goals per season for the remaining three years of his contract, down from the 29 per year he needed entering this season.
I think it’s fair to assume Ovechkin could reach 40 goals in 2023-24, which would then have him enter 2024-25 with 865 goals and 30 away from passing Gretzky.
Barring any more major setbacks (which can’t be ruled out) or a steep drop in production, I would project Ovechkin to become the NHL all-time leading goal-scorer in February 2025.
He’s averaged .706, .533 and .649 goals per game in the past three seasons, respectively. The .533 was the season after the COVID shutdown in which Ovechkin experienced one of the lengthiest injury absences of his career, but that could be a fair estimate of the level he could be producing at in his early 40s since his career average currently stands at .612.
If he does indeed enter 2024-25 — his 20th NHL season — with 865 goals, a .533 goal rate would have him hitting 30 goals in the 56th game of the season. This year, the Caps play their 56th game on Feb. 14 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
This is projecting extremely far ahead and will obviously become more or less likely as time goes on, but a specific projection of the exact middle of February leaves room on either side to suggest it will likely fall somewhere in February.
That said, the projection will be extremely dependent on his goal-scoring rate over the next couple years, but with Ovechkin on the brink of passing Howe, the finish line is truly starting to come into view.
Cover Photo Credit: NBC Sports Washington
The Wildcard 