Alex Ovechkin entered this season with 822 goals, and on his career pace of .61 goals per game, he was on track to break Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894 sometime early in the 2024-25 season, health permitting.
WAS being the word, because Ovi has just five goals in 23 games, and while the Capitals as a whole have had issues scoring, the drought also brings to wonder whether or not the undefeated Father Time has had his clock strike midnight on Ovi a season or two early.
“He did have an assist last night for his 1,500th career point, just the 16th player in NHL history to get there – we’re talking about one of the great offensive players of all-time, and in my opinion, the greatest goal-scorer of all-time,” Grant Paulsen said Friday. “It’s gonna be a lot easier to make that case if and when he passes Wayne Gretzky, and I think as of pretty much midway through last season convinced me he is going to do it.”
But now, this, and while his shot volume is there (3.65 per game, about one less than his career average) but his percentage is just 6.0 percent, well below even the 8.7 he posted in his worst scoring full season (32 goals in 2010-11).
“He’s scored in four of 23 games they’ve played, and you do some math – if he doesn’t get on a heater to correct the numbers, it gets more difficult to see him catching Gretzky,” Grant said. “He’s 38 years old, so the idea was that he scores 40 this year, and he’s knocking on the door next season and eventually gets there…but if he were to only score 15 or 16 goals this season, now all of a sudden, you're still upwards of almost 50 away, and that means you got to find a way to, to up that to 25 next year and do that two times over, and ‘he’s losing it’ comes into the conversation.”
“Absolutely getting nervous, because the time we thought he was slowing down in 2016-17, he was still a Hall of Famer, but then he ripped off 49, 51, and 48 in three straight seasons, and we went, ‘forget everything, this man is superhuman,” Danny said. “But he’s now a victim of the unbelievable excellence that he has sustained over these years where it shouldn't be happening.
What’s more normal is wear and tear on the body claiming people and guys slow down. I assumed like an idiot it wouldn’t happen to him, but I’m now seeing it.
The shot totals aren’t there, and the quality chances aren’t there.”
Ovechkin missed time last year after his father passed away and he returned to Russia, and while that’s not a circumstance anyone feels comfortable lamenting as a ‘what if’ situation, he was on a 50-goal pace before that happened.
He has had a couple of down seasons, but those were still in the low-30s…and of course, the COVID season and the lockout season cost him time, too.
“He really doesn't miss a lot of time, but he has had just a ridiculous amount of ability to, to overcome these stretches with crazy goal runs where he might score four or five times in 10 or 12 games,” Grant said. “He’d have these stretches where he wouldn’t score, and he’d come back with a vengeance – but if he doesn’t do that this year, we’re talking about high-teens, low-20s in goals.”
Both G&D would take the over on 17.5 right now, and even 20.5, but that’s probably the bare minimum he needs to be ‘in a good place’ for the record.
“If he doesn't go on a stretch here, the whole conversation has to change, because we were all kind of talking about it like it was gonna happen and he is not just slowed down, he's kind of run into a wall for right now,” Grant said.
Take a listen to the entire segment above as the guys break down the possibility of the foregone conclusion just being gone!
