If you'd asked me 20 years ago, I would have said confidently that Wayne Gretzky's NHL record of 894 career goals was unbreakable. It was a curio to be admired, not a number to be chased; like Cy Young's 511 wins, it came from a different era, almost a different sport entirely. If you'd asked me one year ago, when Alex Ovechkin was scuffling with five goals, which is all he'd still have even a month later, I'd have considered the chase a tragicomedy—an ancient Ovi, looking so washed up he should be talking to a volleyball, puttering his way through sad season after sad season, long after he should have retired, making his team worse. It would have been awful; it would have lessened both the record and Ovechkin's career.
I'll extend myself some forgiveness for thinking it was over, that guys pushing 40 don't tend to have slumps, or at least not slumps that end. I would have done well to recall Ovechkin's quote from more than a decade ago, a sign that he probably stresses the least of anyone over his goalscoring droughts. "Right now I’m scoring goals and I’m the king of the world," he said. "And a couple weeks ago I was almost in the toilet. So maybe you just forget to flush me."
A funny thing happened after the new year: Ovechkin got good again. Or at least started scoring goals, finishing with 31 on the year. Then the notoriously slow starter came out of the gates hot this season, and here we are: 39 years old, almost totally greyed, and now tied for the league lead in goals after a hat trick in Sunday's 5-2 Caps win in Las Vegas.
Only one of the trio was a classic Ovi snipe, but they all count the same, and in the same direction: up. Goal No. 866 completed his 31st career hat trick, first since 2022, and his 176th career multi-goal game. The only way Gretzky was ever going to be caught was by a greatness sustained beyond the plausible, and if winning an unprecedented nine Rocket Richard Trophies put Ovechkin in position, competing for a 10th is the only proper way to bring it home.
It's a gift, in the same way it is to watch LeBron James tear it up in his age-40 season, or to see Sidney Crosby still play elite center, not to have to watch the greats break down under the assault of those undefeated titans, time and age. To not have to rely on memory alone, or to have to convince skeptical younger fans that once upon a time these guys were the best. The pursuit of Gretzky, particularly, could have been a shameful thing: watching an increasingly decrepit Ovechkin crank out sad little 15-goal seasons into his mid-40s to reach it. Instead he needs just 29 more to claim the record, and at this pace—13 goals through his first 17 games—he could do it in February.
"It’s not a question of if he’s going to break the record; it’s a question of when is he going to break the record," Wayne Gretzky said last week. Gretzky's been a big supporter of Ovechkin throughout the chase; Ovi revealed last month that Wayne texts him in support whenever he's slumping. Good vibes all around!
In a reverse of what it looked like one year ago, the history is blessedly coming in service of the hockey: 895, if and when it happens, will be a sideshow on the way to more secular concerns. Can the Caps keep up their unlikely hot start and make the playoffs? Can Ovi actually score 50 at age 40? The record will fall when it falls. Ovechkin's timelessness has made sure that when it does, it'll be a triumph and not a farce.
