Score 93 more times.
That’s it, that’s all.
For a few years we’ve been tracking the possibility that Alex Ovechkin could catch and pass Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s career goal-scoring record holder. In 2017-18, when Ovechkin scored the 600th of his career, we noted he would need to average 36.875 goals per season through his age-40 year to eclipse Gretzky’s 894 by one.
Since then, Ovechkin has had seasons with 51, 48, 24 (in 45 games), and 50 goals. This season, the now-37-year-old has scored 22 times in 36 games. Amazingly, even this late in his career, Ovechkin is far outperforming the previously required pace and, actually, is still converting at a level consistent with the rest of his career. He might be able to pass Gretzky before his age-40 season even begins.
That was always the key to this chase: Ovechkin was going to have to make up the ground on Gretzky late in his career. Gretzky, who turned 33 midway through the 1993-94 season, scored just 91 goals in his final six NHL seasons. Ovechkin, so far, has scored 144 goals after turning 34 years old and could have a crack at scoring 50 again this season.
At this point, it seems almost guaranteed that Ovechkin will topple one of Gretzky’s great records, health permitting. But what, exactly, is the path to 895 from here?
The Capitals have 46 games remaining this season and if we “conservatively” put him down for another 18 tallies, he’d finish 2022-23 with 820 career goals. From there, if we impose the same 36-goal average pace we thought he needed a couple years ago to this last leg of the journey, Ovechkin would be just three goals shy of the record heading into the 2025-26 season.
That 2025-26 season also happens to be the final year of his current contract with the Washington Capitals. He’d be 40 years old heading into it.
But, really, it might be more reasonable to expect Ovechkin will outperform that average now. Father Time is undefeated, so Ovechkin will presumably slow down at some point, but he hasn’t scored fewer than 48 goals over a full season since 2016-17. He’s pacing for 51 goals this season.
Whatever Ovechkin finishes with in April, when the 2023-24 season begins he will be a 38-year-old player with three years left on his contract. Even with a sharp decline in production, he has a clearly attainable path to Gretzky.
Here’s a look at how many goals Ovechkin would have to average per season over his contract’s final three years if…