Is Alex Ovechkin’s new NHL goals record unreachable? Explaining the historical context

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Washington Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin made NHL history on Sunday, scoring the 895th goal of his 20-year career and passing the iconic Wayne Gretzky for first place on the all-time list.

It’s the hockey equivalent of Barry Bonds passing Hank Aaron with his 756th home run, or LeBron James passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with his 38,388th point — a modern legend chasing down one of the most revered records in sports, held by one of the most revered athletes of all time.

Here’s a little historical perspective on Ovechkin’s feat:

When did Gretzky set the record?

Gretzky scored his 802nd goal on March 23, 1994 against Vancouver, knocking a Marty McSorley pass into a mostly empty net and passing Gordie Howe, “Mr. Hockey,” for first on the all-time list. Gretzky was in his 15th NHL season, and the goal came in his 1,117th regular-season game. Howe was widely considered the game’s greatest player until Gretzky came along, posting 801 goals and 1,850 points in 1,767 games. The games-played record stood until Patrick Marleau broke it in 2021.

Howe played in five different decades (six if you count the one game he played with the International Hockey League’s Detroit Vipers in 1997 at the age of 69), starting his career with the Detroit Red Wings in 1946 and finishing it with the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80. Howe’s blend of skill, strength and sandpaper made him a legend, but even his numbers pale in comparison to Gretzky’s.

How unreachable did the record seem when Gretzky retired?

Whenever a debate arises about who the greatest individual athlete is in team sports — Babe Ruth? Michael Jordan? Tom Brady? — hockey fans almost always go to the same mind-boggling stat. Gretzky was the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, and yet if you took away every one of his 894 of his goals, he’d still have more points than any other player in league history. Gretzky had 2,857 points; Jaromir Jagr is next at 1,921, in 246 more games. Gretzky’s dominance is unparalleled.

He has the only four 200-point seasons in NHL history, including a staggering 215-point campaign in 1985-86. In that season, he posted 163 assists. Only twice has a player other than Gretzky had more than 163 points in a season (both times it was Mario Lemieux). And while Gretzky was the greatest playmaker the game has ever seen, he also had been its most prolific finisher. He’s first and second on the single-season goals list, with 92 in 1981-82 and 87 in 1983-84. He also had two 70-goal seasons, five 60-goal seasons, nine 50-goal seasons and scored at least 40 goals in each of his first 12 seasons (never reaching that mark again).

Other players were more efficient goal-scorers. New York Islanders winger Mike Bossy scored 573 goals in just 10 seasons, averaging 0.76 goals per game, before back problems cut his career short at age 30. Lemieux (0.75 goals per game), current Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews (0.64) and Vancouver Canucks great Pavel Bure (0.62) are ahead of Gretzky and Ovechkin, who each check in next at 0.6 goals per game. But Gretzky lasted 20 seasons, finally slowing down with nine goals in 70 games with the New York Rangers in 1998-99. Ovechkin is in his 20th season, too. He’s played exactly the same number of games as Gretzky, too: 1,487. Ovechkin is showing no signs of slowing down, however, with 42 goals this season.

How has the league changed in the interim?

Gretzky was at his most dominant during the 1980s, when the game was much higher-scoring than it is today. During those 12 40-goal seasons that opened his career, NHL goalies had an average save percentage of .878. In other words, they stopped 87.8 percent of the shots they saw. In Ovechkin’s career, goalies have had an average save percentage of approximately .910. The average game in the 1980s featured 1.64 more goals than the average game during Ovechkin’s career, which includes the so-called “dead-puck era” of the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, when stifling defensive systems such as the neutral-zone trap ruled the day.

That said, it’s not as if everyone was scoring 90 goals in the 1980s. When Gretzky set the record with his now-unfathomable 92-goal season, Bossy was second with 64. Two years later, Gretzky had 87 goals, and Michel Goulet was next with 56. Gretzky’s era of dominance was more, well, dominant. But Ovechkin’s consistency won out in the end. Gretzky’s last four seasons saw him score 23, 25, 23 and nine goals. Ovechkin’s last four seasons have seen him score 50, 42, 31 and 42 goals. As Ovechkin famously said early in his career, “Russian machine never breaks.”

Is Ovechkin’s record now unbreakable?

Ovechkin passing one of Gretzky’s hallowed marks should serve as a reminder that anything is possible. But it’s a long shot. Among active players, Matthews has by far the best shot (literally and figuratively; his release is the most lethal in the league). Even after a down season this year, Matthews is averaging more goals per game than either Gretzky or Ovechkin did over the course of their full careers. Matthews scored 69 goals last season, the 15th-highest total ever and the most in more than three decades (Alex Mogilny and Teemu Selanne each scored 76 in 1992-93, the last season of the high-scoring era).

Of course, when Gretzky had reached 600 games, he already had scored more than 500 goals. Matthews is just now approaching 400. So if Matthews hopes to get to 900 (or more) someday, he’ll need to match or surpass Ovechkin’s consistency and durability. It’s a lot to ask.

Edmonton’s dynamic duo of Connor McDavid (0.51 goals per game) and Leon Draisaitl (0.51), and Boston’s David Pastrnak (0.52) are the only other players with even an outside chance of chasing down Ovechkin at this point. But all three of them have played at least 700 games and none of them has reached 400 goals yet, either. At this rate, they’ll have to continue to play all-world hockey into their 40s to have any hope at all.

Ovechkin now stands alone. And it’s quite a mountain to climb to catch him.

(Photo of Wayne Gretzky: Bruce Bennett / Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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