Alex Ovechkin will enter the 2024-25 season on the cusp of history. With 853 career goals under his belt, Ovechkin sits just 41 goals shy of tying Wayne Gretzky (894) for the NHL all-time goals record — a record that once looked unbreakable.
Over Ovechkin’s 19 seasons in the NHL, fans who grew up watching him play have begun to embark on hockey careers of their own. Several of those players will soon face him on the ice as he continues to chase down Gretzky.
2024 first overall pick Macklin Celebrini spoke on Ovechkin’s goal chase at the 2024 NHLPA Rookie Showcase last week, saying he thought Ovi could beat the record as soon as this season.
“I mean he’s probably the best goal scorer of all time, so I think [he can],” he said. “You can never count him out.”
Celebrini was hardly the first to suggest Ovechkin could soon score goal no. 895. Rasmus Sandin argued that Ovechkin would need less than two years to break the record, while Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery believes he could do so in a single campaign.
“Do I think he can score 42 goals this year? Yes, I do.” Carbery told NHL.com last month.
Ovechkin, who has two years remaining on his contract, notched 31 goals last season. While he started slow with just 8 goals in his first 43 games, he made a spectacular rebound in the second half of the campaign, recording 23 goals in his final 36 appearances. If he keeps up that second-half pace in 2024-25, Ovechkin would need just 66 games to break the record.
Even players set to become Ovechkin’s on-ice rivals have faith in his goal-scoring talents. Rutger McGroarty, now with the Pittsburgh Penguins, was all but certain that Ovechkin would eventually reach the milestone.
“It’ll be hard for him not to,” he said. “I feel like he’s scored goals his whole life, so why will he stop now?”
Drafted 14th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in 2022, McGroarty became a focus of trade chatter this summer when he refused to sign in Winnipeg. The Capitals emerged as a potential destination, but the Jets ultimately opted to deal him to Pittsburgh less than two weeks before the Rookie Showcase.
McGroarty, who was just eighteen months old when Ovechkin made his NHL debut, may soon play against him for perhaps the Capitals’ greatest foe. While there’s little lost love between the two teams, McGroarty admitted he hoped to meet him on opposite sides of the ice.
“That would be really cool,” he said. “It would be awesome. Obviously, Ovi’s another guy that you just grew up watching. Seeing his goals from the ice, him doing the hot stick celly, all that stuff. It’s going to be really cool.
“But also, at the end of the day, you’re competing against those guys as well, so you can’t have too much of an awe moment, because you’re going against them, you’re battling against them, and you’re battling for points in the standings. So it will be cool at first, looking across in warmups with them when the game starts. It is what it is.”
