Pavel Datsyuk has chimed in on what hockey history he would like Alex Ovechkin to track down next after The Great 8 broke Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record this past season.
The former Detroit Red Wings superstar and longtime national team teammate of Ovechkin wants to see him score 1,000 career goals. And, he joked that Ovechkin shouldn’t be allowed back into his homeland until he achieves the milestone.
“I think everyone is waiting for Ovechkin to score his 1,000th goal in the NHL championships,” Datsyuk told Match TV’s Pavel Lysenkov, as translated by Google Translate. “Until then, we won’t let him into Russia.”
“A new goal, the thousandth goal,” he added. “This is good motivation.”
Ovechkin will head into the 2025-26 campaign, the last year on his current contract with the Capitals, three goals away from being the first player in NHL history to score 900 goals. He is also just nine games away from becoming the 23rd player to ever play in 1,500 career games.
If Ovechkin were to keep scoring at his career goal-per-game rate, 0.60, he would reach 1,000 career goals in his 1,662nd career game. That would involve him playing in another 171 NHL games, which means he’d need to skate in at least another three seasons with the Capitals or score at a faster pace than his career average after turning 40 in September.
Outside of Datsyuk’s monumental ask, there are other records that Ovechkin can still track down even if he were to continue playing for just one more season. Among them is taking sole possession of the most 50-goal seasons in NHL history (10), which Ovechkin was on pace to do last year until he broke his leg in November.
Ovechkin is also just 286 hits away from surpassing Cal Clutterbuck for the most hits in NHL history. He is currently ranked third on the all-time list with 3,743 hits behind only Matt Martin (3,936) and Clutterbuck (4,029). Martin and Clutterbuck are both no longer playing in the league after Martin wrapped up his final year this past season.
Datsyuk, part of the 2024 class of the Hockey Hall of Fame, retired from professional hockey in 2021, following five seasons in the KHL after departing the Red Wings. He signed a one-day NHL contract with Detroit in 2024 to officially retire as a member of the Red Wings.
The 46-year-old, two-time Stanley Cup champion currently serves as a development coach for the KHL’s Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg.
