When Might Ovechkin Catch Gretzky Now?
The record chase is back on! Let's update when the big goal(s) could happen.
Six weeks ago, Alex Ovechkin’s pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record for career goals seemed like it might be dead, at least for 2024-25 — if not permanently.
At age 39, the Washington Capitals legend was off to a remarkable start to the year, with 15 goals in his first 18 games of the season, pulling him within 26 goals of the Great One with 64 games left on the schedule. But disaster struck when Ovi collided with Jack McBain of the Utah Hockey Club on Nov. 18. Crumpling over in pain, Ovechkin couldn’t leave the ice under his own power, and his team later announced that he would miss 4-6 weeks with a fractured left fibula. Between the uncertainty of when Ovi would return and how effective he would be afterward, it was unclear if he would have enough juice left to catch Gretzky by season’s end.
Fast-forward to this past weekend, though, and Ovechkin was ready to return to the ice on Saturday against the Maple Leafs — making it clear that the chase for Gretzky’s record was back on in a major way.
In the closing minutes versus Toronto, with Washington leading by a pair of goals and the Leafs net empty, Ovechkin leaked out for an outlet pass and an easy goal No. 869. Then, against Detroit the following night, he trailed the play and got to his favorite spot on the ice to snipe home a one-timer for No. 870.
That puts him just 24 goals back of Gretzky going into Tuesday’s contest versus Boston — the first of 46 remaining games on the Caps’ 2024-25 schedule. That means he will need to score at a pace of 0.522 goals per game to tie the Great One by season’s end, and maintain a pace of 0.543 goals per game to surpass him.
How doable is that? If Ovi scores at his overall pace from the past three seasons (0.523 GPG), he would basically tie the record in the Caps’ final game of the season, on April 17 against longtime frenemy Sidney Crosby and the Penguins. But he can also conceivably tie — and break — the record sooner than that:
If he scores at his pace from just this season (0.85 GPG), he would effectively tie the record on March 9 — at home against Seattle — and break it on March 11 in Anaheim. That is an absolutely scorching pace, however, higher than any previous season of Ovi’s entire career (which is saying something for the seventh-highest GPG player in NHL history). So even though he appears to have leapt right back into peak form following the injury, it may be asking too much for him to keep scoring this way all year.
Still, if he simply matches his career average of 0.60 GPG from here on out, Ovechkin would tie Gretzky on April 4, at home against Chicago, and break the record on April 6 at the Islanders. (If that happens, he’d seal the deal with 5 games to spare before the end of the regular season.)
That feels realistic, though it still requires him to keep scoring at his usual pace from the past 20 years (despite coming off that serious injury) and to stay in the lineup for all of Washington’s remaining games. In other words, Ovechkin may still be cutting it close to tie (much less break) the record in 2024-25 — though the fact that he’s still in a position to do it at all makes this an incredible storyline to follow over the next handful of months.
Filed under: NHL, Hockey, Hockey Bytes