Alexander Ovechkin’s pursuit of The Great One is approaching its final stage. Ovi needs just 22 goals to overtake Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer with 895.
Not only is Ovechkin on pace to break the record, he’s also trending to do it ahead of Gretzky. It took 1,487 career games to set the mark in 1999, and considering Ovechkin has 20 goals in 28 games this season he’s set to hit the mark by game 1,454. If you’re a gambling person that means the Capitals forward is set to break the NHL all-time goal-scoring record in Boston on April 1st.
Nobody has been a better, more consistent scorer than Ovechkin over his last 20 years in the NHL. The only other player to score 20 goals a season for 20 years in a row is the legendary Gordie Howe — and Ovi passed that mark five days ago.
But for as incredible as Ovechkin has been as a scorer, this whole chase underscored exactly how mind-boggling Gretzky’s career was in the National Hockey League. While his goal record will fall this year, nothing will touch the points record — maybe ever.
Across Ovechkin’s career, he’s logged 709 assists to go with his 873 goals. That’s a staggering 1,254 fewer than The Great One. The only active players in hockey who are in the Top 25 in points are Sidney Crosby (9th) and Ovechkin (12th) — with both training Gretzky by over 1,000 points.
The goal record will fall, and it will be a moment of fanfare to see the first individual record set in hockey in decades — but let’s just remember when it happens that nobody, nobody is going to catch Gretzky.
