895 for The Great 8.
In surpassing the all-time record, Alex Ovechkin has cemented himself as the greatest goal scorer in NHL history.
Compared to its most direct North American contemporaries, hockey is not a sport bound as tightly by the threads of nostalgia.
Legends past and the imprints they left behind, they’re not as broadly known in the larger sporting space. Exploits, not scripture in the same way they might have been had those players chosen the diamond or the court instead.
Not Wagner or Young or Mikan but fireflies regardless, buzzing, relentlessly, in those cold dark barns.
Of wiry build and supposedly supernatural scoring touch was Joe Malone. The Phantom. He plied most of his peak in those burgeoning years, when the sport was only beginning to experiment with true professionalism but was a staple of the NHL’s earliest days, the first to 100 career goals, in 1921.
That, a full seven years before the forward pass was properly implemented, at a time when the sport was not defined by skill but rather, submission.
Nels Stewart, Old Poison, who, the ever-unconfirmed myth goes, had a shot nearly as hard as the tobacco juice he purposely spat in the eyes of his opposition, with intent to blind, as he barrelled towards the crease, kicking and screaming as he did. Becoming in time, the next man to be knocked down from the all-time, goal scoring pedestal.
Arrogant though he was however, in assuming no other could match his fire.
For in his steed came Maurice Richard. The Rocket. He, who played hockey with such utter ferocity, it was as if he had been dragged upwards from the very depths of Hell itself.
Once bringing the City of Montréal to its knees in passionate defense for his name alone, the spirit of the French Canadian identity, held up defiantly on his shoulders. The goalscoring records he redefined for generations hence, soaked not just in his blood but that of his rivals.
Physically untouchable, defensively sound and offensively brilliant was Gordie Howe, Mister Hockey. Remaining, still, one of the most complete players to ever lace ‘em up as he dominated the corners (with his elbows up) for parts of five decades on the ice.
And while the double-nines on his sweater were a direct homage to the singular one Howe made famous, Wayne Gretzky was built in the polar opposite mold of his childhood hero, it is true.
Vision, flair and pure, incomparable puck-handling skill.
These were his tools, as the man who would become known, rather concisely, as The Great One rewrote virtually every single scoring record his sport could muster. More assists, more points, more goals than anyone before and one would think, anyone who would follow. Those 894 tallies, upon his retirement in the spring of 1999, seemingly unsurmountable.
Though as Alex Ovechkin scored his 895th career goal on Sunday afternoon, his 42nd of the season, to become, indisputably, the greatest goal scorer in NHL history?
As the praise (“OVI! OVI! OVI!”) rained down upon the Washington Capitals stalwart, on the road, no less, from the Belmont Park faithful, in opposing support of their beloved Islanders, one could be forgiven for drawing the odd parallel. For falling victim to that unfrequent nostalgia, if just for a moment or two.
Following the through line from Ovechkin, to many of those all—time goal scoring leaders who came before, now, to forever remain behind. All the more true, as his family and then, Gretzky stood beside him during an extended ceremony mid-game.
Washington would lose, 4-1, but it didn’t seem to matter.
It began and ended with the Caps, on the power-play, just under eight minutes into the second period, Ovechkin, picking up speed from his defensive blue line.
Subtly sliding to the left side as the rush broke into the zone, with Dylan Strome passing the puck to Tom Wilson before shifting in-between the Islanders defense, leaving Ovechkin, posted up (where else?) just beyond the left circle, wide-open and waiting.
Wilson fed on the cross-ice pass and Ovechkin, immediately corralling the puck, ate, as he wired the record-breaking shot past countryman Ilya Sorokin, before turning and blasting towards centre ice in celebration. A full bore belly flop well underway before the cheers had hardly started drowning out the horn.
Though like the most memorable of hockey moments, it happened quickly, in a sequence lasting not even a full ten seconds front-to-back.
So much for suspense.
Hockey is not a sport that, naturally, invites itself to the spotlight and when it does, it is often for the wrong reasons. Yet when he tied the record last Friday, with a two-goal performance against Chicago, Ovechkin bowed to Gretzky, above him in the stands (and insistent, he was, that he wouldn’t score 895 on an empty net).
On Sunday, after they shook hands, they embraced.
The Phantom’s mystique or Old Poison’s drive. The Rocket’s passion. Mister Hockey’s physical gifts or The Great One’s finesse.
None of them though, are totally comparable one-to-one: for of course, nobody is quite like Ovechkin, The Great 8.
Every athlete goes through cycles, stages. Eras. Dips in production, highs in execution, drops, in their delivery.
But Ovechkin’s sheer durability, resilience, his longevity, it has been, undoubtedly, his greatest strength over his twenty-and-counting NHL seasons. Though no more prominently than right now, in this moment, upon his ascension to the very top of the goal scoring mountain.
Having long been the subject of barbershop debate and online conjecture, when he scored his 800th goal in 2022, it came with a pronounced sense of clarity. No more could idle potential be excused as an over-excited hypothetical. No more was he just chasing history, he was closing in on it, whatever the cost, like Henry Aaron, Barry Bonds or LeBron James before him. The hunt. Seeing one man take the impossible and bending it to his will into something physical, tangible.
He broke his fibula in late November, seemingly pushing the record claim, as traditional wisdom would dictate, into next season, at least. Even then, there were no guarantees, how could there be?
But he missed just sixteen games (again, after breaking his fibula), returned just following the League’s holiday hiatus and continued doing exactly what he has done since he arrived in the NHL in the fall of 2005. That first overall pick from Dynamo Moscow, promise in his posture.
Making the extraordinary seem unbelievably routine.
Twenty seasons, that, of unmatched goal scoring consistency.
The what-ifs, not bound to injury or poor play but instead, the realities of what, through two lockouts (including an entire season lost, in 2004) and the pandemic-shortened year, he may have accomplished still but what he has done so far regardless.
Consider:
Twenty consecutive seasons of 20+ goals.
Nineteen 30+ goal seasons, the most in NHL history.
Fourteen seasons of 40+ goals, the most in NHL history.
Nine seasons of 50+ goals, tied with Gretzky and Mike Bossy for (wait for it) the most in NHL history.
The most power-play and game-winning goals ever.
Nine Rocket Richard trophies as the season-over-season goal-scoring leader, the most ever.
Just the third player to score 800 regular season goals in their career, following Howe and Gretzky (and soon, inevitably, to become the first to 900).
It is within the way Ovechkin reached the number however, in this, the typical twilight phase. Where one might expect an athlete to drag themselves over the proverbial finish line, only to struggle, in hearing the acclaim over their exhaustion.
He is not that guy.
Sure, those in the terminally-online discourse may jest.
Never a totally committed defensive player nor the most offensively dominant overall (for Gretzky, that title remains: take away all his goals, he’d still have more points than anyone else).
An “empty net merchant”, of which, to be fair, he has the most or spotting up, as he so often has, with those pinpoint shots from the left dot.
Though if they could’ve stopped Ovechkin, on his march to history, well, they would have long before he got this far.
At 39 now, slower, having come to terms with the grey that covers his beard, it is understood. He is no longer the raw force of nature he once was. Even if actively defining him is far tricker than it would appear at a glance (how does a prime truly end, when a player is still bagging 40-plus goal seasons, twenty years later?).
Though distilling his greatness into what is, currently, it can easily cause one to forget what was and to a lesser extent, what it could be yet.
Ovechkin, in his peak during the late 2000s and into the 2010s, those bright yellow laces and the tinted grey visor. Dark hair, unkempt, trailing down in front of his eyes.
The missing teeth, accenting an always-present grin.
A power forward of no comparison, an always-underrated playmaker relative to his goal-scoring prowess. A physical and offensive dynamo with perhaps hockey’s rarest pairing: strength and hands in equal measure, coloured, somewhat, in Howe’s long-ago image but uniquely himself too.
Bullying and boosting his way through every inch of the offensive end. In tight, from the corners, dashes of speed as he peeled away, his number “8”, catching the wind, breakaway-after-breakaway.
Every goal, each and every time, celebrated like it was his first, as he radiated personality and charm against the usual hockey standard. Never one either, to shy away from his Phil Kessel-approved, fabulously awesome anti-athlete diet of beer, Hot Cheetos and vodka whilst becoming something of a meme king in the process.
This, responded to with rage from the then vocal majority, years before the social media age would force such exuberance into hockey’s mainstream presentation.
His play, authoring poetry even during his rookie year.
That sprawling on-his-back effort, thick in the winter doldrums of 2006, which saw him scoring from an utterly impossible angle, a shot known forever-after, simply as “The Goal”. A precursor, evidently, of what was to come, binding, as it was (with Gretzky behind the Phoenix bench and future Toronto Maple Leafs superstar, Auston Matthews, he of three Rockets himself, in the stands).
Yet, despite Ovechkin’s excellence and trophy cabinet nigh-bursting with individual accolades, oh, how his Capitals struggled, for years, to find any sort of legitimate success in the playoffs.
It was frustration only compounded as his one-time commercial partner turned perennial rival (but later, in time, respected competitor) Sidney Crosby lead his Pittsburgh Penguins and his country, to championship glory after championship glory.
So as Washington finally broke through in 2017/2018, defeating Pittsburgh as they did, on their way to Stanley Cup victory, it was the bow, even then, on Ovechkin’s career.
The drunken euphoria he led his Capitals through in celebration as they paraded the Cup through their city, it was iconic yes but also, it took down the largest milestone he had yet to cross off the board: Gretzky, the chase, a matter of when, not if.
And with that mission accomplished, the focus shifts once more.
The Caps are in the thick of the Presidents’ Trophy race with five games to go as of this writing, the playoffs looming, another title in their sights. Ovechkin, as he has been for two decades now, at the helm. Crosby, no, he won’t be caught as the player of their generation (and one of the top-five players ever) but Ovechkin, as he always has, has done it his own way, on his own terms.
Not without discontent, particularly now.
It is the fool that wishes to disconnect politics from sport (once more, to be clear, they’re inseparable) but as a Russian national, Ovechkin’s openly close relationship with Vladimir Putin has always been uncomfortable, to say the least.
More so in recent years, given the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the more visible political environment it has worked to cultivate. Long gone are the days when such a thing could be joked about in SportsCentre ads.
Some would wish not to pry into the personal lives of their sporting heroes but when they are broadcast so clearly and unapologetically, given the larger apparatus they operate within, it bears remembering just how important that degree of separation has become (even Gretzky, for all his faux-modesty BS, has seen what little remained of his Canadian goodwill utterly evaporate over the past few months by way of his personal politics and the implications they bring).
Though for Ovechkin, on the ice, it seems “slowing down” is not yet to be found in his vocabulary.
Others, they will chase, as he did.
But they better start now.
After all, The Great 8 won’t make it easy.