Ovechkin ‘still the same big kid’ on verge of setting NHL goals record with Capitals

WASHINGTON -- When Alex Ovechkin’s one-timer sailed past Chicago Blackhawks goalie Spencer Knight on Friday for his 894th goal, it not only tied him with Wayne Gretzky for the most in NHL history, it also brought down the protective shield the Washington Capitals left wing had used to keep himself focused during his season-long grind toward immortality.

After months of repeating his mantra of, “game by game, shift by shift,” pulling even with Gretzky by scoring his 893rd and 894th goals in a 5-3 win at Capital One Arena seemed to cause a release of emotion that allowed him to finally talk openly about how much this record means to him.

"Every moment since the first day in training camp, we're chasing a great moment in hockey,” Ovechkin said. “I didn't put pressure on myself a lot, and I was enjoying this moment and I'm still enjoying it. It's such a great moment for hockey.”

Ovechkin still has one more step to take, and as soon as the subject turned to trying to score his record-breaking 895th against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, on Sunday (12:30 p.m. ET; MAX, MNMT, truTV, TNT, SN360, TVAS), he returned to his familiar refrain.

“It's game by game, it's shift by shift,” he said. “You never know what's going to happen.”

Still, Ovechkin never imagined any of this when the Capitals selected him with the No. 1 pick in the 2004 NHL Draft. His only expectation then was, “Just try to play my best.”

Even coming close to Gretzky’s goal total was not in his or anyone else’s thoughts.

“Obviously, you never thought you were going to get those kind of numbers or years,” Ovechkin said. “But you just want to try to do your best.”

In that way, Ovechkin has more than delivered and pushed himself to the brink of breaking a record most thought would stand forever. The 39-year-old didn’t believe it was possible himself until recent seasons, telling NHL.com in January 2017, “I talked to Wayne, and I don't think those records can be beaten, ever.”

As Ovechkin continued to consistently score, though, setting NHL records for 30-goal seasons (19) and 40-goal seasons (14) and tying Gretzky and Mike Bossy for most 50-goal seasons (nine), he saw a path to breaking the goal record and first acknowledged to NHL.com in a story published April 3, 2019, “I'm going to try to do it.”

Six years later, Ovechkin is on the verge of completing that quest and seemingly speeding up as he nears the finish line. He’s scored in four straight games, with five goals during that surge, to move into third in the League with 41 this season.

"You can feel it,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “I feel it being around him every day. He is possessed to break this record, and now he's on a mission.”

A lot has gone into this 20-season mission. Below are some stories, compiled from current and former teammates, coaches and opponents, that help tell how he reached this point.

* * *

“I’ve got to play good”

There was a buzz at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh on Nov. 22, 2005, for the much-anticipated first NHL meeting between Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, who was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins with the No. 1 pick in the 2005 NHL Draft. Ovechkin, then a 20-year-old on his way to winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie in 2005-06, seemed to understand the importance of this game, which would begin a long rivalry between him and Crosby and the Capitals and Penguins.

Then-Washington coach Glen Hanlon remembers watching Ovechkin loosening up outside the visiting locker room before the game.

“Ovi is doing all these jumps, and there was just this intensity,” Hanlon said. “And he just goes, ‘I’ve got to play good.’ It just meant so much to him in that first game in there to able to be better. To be better was important to him, and he wasn’t afraid to express that.”

Ovechkin and the rebuilding Capitals lost that game 5-4 and didn’t win much in his first two seasons. But they qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in his third season and have failed to qualify only twice since then (2014, 2023).

Although Ovechkin didn’t speak English well when he arrived from Russia, it was clear to his teammates he was all-in with the Capitals from the start, and not only because he scored two goals in his NHL debut against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

At the beginning of his first training camp, Ovechkin went around the locker room trying to learn each player’s name, writing them down and repeating them in English, sometimes not well. It became a team-building exercise with Ovechkin and his new teammates sharing some laughs while getting to know one another.

“There were some, I can’t remember the names but, we’d call them ‘Ovi-isms’ because he would make up some words,” former Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig said. “The thing was he was trying.”

Ovechkin leaned on his first center Dainius Zubrus, a Lithuanian he’d played with for Russia at 2004 World Cup of Hockey, as his translator, but he didn’t room with Zubrus until his second season.

“His rookie year, he wanted to stay with somebody that was English-speaking,” Zubrus said. “Brian Willsie was his roomie, so he could learn more English and he’d able to get into the team and understand things.”

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis recalled Ovechkin showing up early for a fan event following the 2004 draft in Raleigh, North Carolina, standing at the door and shaking each person’s hand as they arrived, welcoming them while they welcomed him, and sharing some fruit.

“I get emails all the time from long-term fans saying, ‘Hey, I remember when we ate a slice of a cantaloupe together,’” Leonsis said. “He ate like eight cantaloupes. He’d never had cantaloupe before.”

Leonsis tells another story of then-Washington general manager George McPhee dropping Ovechkin off at his house in McLean, Virginia shortly after that draft and Ovechkin spending the day with his family.

“He didn’t speak much English,” Leonsis said. “I went into the pool with him, and we were talking, and I told him, ‘We’re in this together and we’re going to win a Stanley Cup, and you can be one of the greatest players ever. My goal is to treat you like you’re a part of the family, and this is going to be a great experience for the two of us.’”

Ovechkin remembers the conversation with Leonsis in the pool that day, too. He took the words to heart.

“His dream was to win the Stanely Cup, and it was my dream too,” Ovechkin said. “It took us a long time to do that, but we built great chemistry, we built a great relationship and finally we did it.”

There was some heartache along the way, but Ovechkin and the Capitals finally broke through in 2018 and won the Cup for the first time. Ovechkin won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs, which he led with 15 goals in 24 games.

The Capitals did not hold back while celebrating around Washington, including washing away the years of disappointment with a swim in a Georgetown fountain.

“Winning a Stanley Cup is big for him too,” former Capitals forward Mike Knuble said. “I think that was a big feather in his cap. You don’t want to be that guy that hadn’t won the major, like in golf. He won the major.”

* * *

“It’s just mind-blowing”

Ovechkin’s shot has been one of the most powerful weapons in the NHL for two decades. It still is, as evidenced by his 27 shots of 90 miles per hour or higher this season, according to NHL EDGE stats, which ranks second in the League among forwards.

It’s baffled and sometimes overpowered the NHL-record 182 different goalies who Ovechkin has scored against and helped him win the Rocket Richard Trophy as the League’s leading goal-scorer a record nine times.

“He shoots fast. It comes quick. It comes heavy,” said the Minnesota Wild’s Marc-Andre Fleury, who has allowed the most goals to Ovechkin (28) and faced him more than any other goalie (47 games). “I feel like he can shoot, it doesn’t matter what kind of pass is given to him, if it’s behind, in front, back foot, front foot, you know? It hits and then comes to the net fast. He doesn’t miss the net much.”

Ovechkin’s accuracy as an underrated part of his shot. Combining that with his volume -- his 6,847 shots on goal are the most in NHL history -- is one of the keys to his success.

Another is his ability to find the open areas on the ice.

“Obviously, his shot is world-class, but it’s a lot more than that because there’s been a lot of people that have been good shooters that have been in the League,” said goalie Darcy Kuemper, who played with Ovechkin for two seasons with Washington before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings last offseason. “But his instincts, his scoring instincts, he knows where to go, where the puck’s going to go, how to get open.”

Ovechkin is known for scoring from his “office” in the left circle and charting of his goals by NHL.com backs that up. He has scored 392 of his 894 goals (43.8 percent) from the left circle or above it, including 191 (21.4 percent) on one-timers from that area of the ice.

Of Ovechkin’s NHL-record 324 power-play goals, 137 (42.3 percent) have come on one-timers from the left circle or above, including his record-tying 894th goal Friday. That left-circle production was maximized when Adam Oates took over as Capitals coach in 2012 and installed his 1-3-1 power-play system that featured Ovechkin’s one-timer.

In his seven seasons before that, Ovechkin scored 115 of his 339 total goals (33.9 percent) from the left circle of above, and only 21 of his 111 power-play goals (18.9 percent) on one-timers from that area of the ice. Since the start of the 2012-13 season, Ovechkin has scored 277 of his 555 goals (49.9 percent) from the left circle or above it and 116 of his 213 power-play goals (54.5 percent) on one-timers from the left circle and above it.

Despite opponents knowing where Ovechkin was going to be shooting from, particularly on the power play, he has continued to score.

“It’s just mind-blowing that you know it’s going to eventually go there, and everybody is trying to cheat on it either by blocking it or the goalie is trying to make a save and he still finds a way to score from there,” said former NHL defenseman Zdeno Chara, who was Ovechkin’s teammate in 2020-21. “It tells you good he is and how dangerous that shot is and how incredibly hard and accurate that shot is.”

It’s notable that half of Ovechkin’s goals have been scored from other areas of the ice, though. Nearly two-thirds (66.1 percent) of his goals were not scored from the left circle or above it during his first seven seasons.

Ovechkin scored 13 of his 52 goals during his rookie season from and 17 of his NHL career-high 65 goals in 2007-08 the net-front area. And though he got away from that some in the middle of his career -- just three of his League-leading 32 goals during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season came from the net front -- he’s returned to that area as he’s adapted with age and changes in the game.

Ovechkin has scored 29 of his 114 goals (25.4 percent) the past three seasons from the net front, including eight of his 41 this season. And his 231 career goals off rush plays (from all areas) demonstrate it’s always been a dangerous part of his game.

“If you look at the League and the kind of ups and downs and everyone tries to be whoever’s winning and build teams based on that, I think he’s lived through so many of those switches: heavy, strong, powerful, holding, interference, battle through it, speed, skill,” Capitals defenseman John Carlson said. “Scoring off the rush, some years he’d be great, and in front of the net he had to at times figure out a way to score goals at the net front that he never had before. So, he constantly was evolving.

“Obviously, you can’t be at the top of scoring goals every single season of his whole career if you don’t do that.”

* * *

“You want to be part of history?”

Nicklas Backstrom was Ovechkin’s primary center for much of their 17 seasons as teammates and assisted on 279 of his goals before recurring left hip issues with his left hip forced him to stop playing early last season. So, he understands well the importance of getting the puck to Ovechkin in areas where he can use his lethal shot.

Backstrom also knows that you can never get him the puck enough, quipping that his biggest takeaway from their time as linemates was, “probably explaining to him that he wasn’t always open.”

“But he wanted the puck the whole time,” Backstrom said.

Dylan Strome, Ovechkin’s primary center much of the past three seasons, learned that quickly after joining Washington in 2022. He also learned that Ovechkin is particular about the kind of passes he wants.

Ovechkin reminded Strome of that when he walked through the locker room recently, repeating “flat, flat, flat.”

“Always telling me to make flat passes,” Strome said. “It’s, I don’t want to say a tough job because it’s not a tough job, you’ve just got to give him the puck.”

Ovechkin’s linemates need to find the balance, though, between getting him the puck at the right times and overpassing when he’s not open.

“You had to be very careful that you didn’t defer to him too much,” said Knuble, who played on Ovechkin’s right wing for much of his three seasons with Washington (2009-2012). “You knew what he could do, but it wasn’t like force it, force it, force it to him all the time. I think you had to get him the puck when you could, and do some of the legwork and stuff, but when you had a chance and you were in a high-percentage scoring are, you had to shoot the puck.

“You couldn’t defer all the time. You had to complement.”

Ovechkin has always appreciated how important his teammates have been during his climb to the NHL goals record, listing a few of them Friday, including Knuble, Backstrom, Viktor Kozlov, Sergei Fedorov, T.J. Oshie, Mike Green and Tom Wilson among others.

"Without my boys, I would never reach that milestone,” he said.

Ovechkin doesn’t hesitate with his answer, though, when asked which player has had the biggest impact on his career.

“Obviously, ‘Backy’,” Ovechkin said. “That chemistry that we had on the ice and off the ice, obviously, I miss him right now so much.”

Ovechkin still wants the puck as much as possible, though. In fact, as he’s neared the goal record, he’s jokingly used it as a carrot to convince his teammates to pass to him.

“He always says, ‘You want to be part of history?’ or something like that,” Capitals forward Andrew Mangiapane said. “You know, ‘I’m open. You want to be part of history?’”

That’s why, after Mangiapane assisted on Ovechkin’s 885th goal which he scored against the New York Rangers on March 5, Mangiapane could be heard yelling, “I’m a part of history!” when he joined the on-ice celebration.

Strome has heard the, “It’s history” plea for the puck from Ovechkin a few times.

“But it’s true,” said Strome, who has assisted on 20 of Ovechkin’s 41 goals this season, including No. 893 on Friday. “Obviously, all of his goals, but every goal now you’re definitely a part of history and it’s pretty cool.”

* * *

“He turned the entire city into something it wasn’t before”

Thirty goal counters scattered throughout the Washington area, at landmarks such as Ben’s Chili Bowl and the Smithsonian National Museum of History, tracking Ovechkin’s pursuit of Gretzky’s record provide another example of his impact on the area.

His chase has generated excitement in the city and in neighboring Maryland and Virgina similar to the Capitals’ run to the Stanley Cup in 2018. On the night of their Cup-clinching win against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, fans filled Capital One Arena and the streets outside it for a watch party and the celebration that followed.

“You’d watch a game before Alex, and it was just a regular game and maybe we were 70 percent sold out or whatever,” Leonsis said. “He comes in and we made the playoffs the third year he was on the team and pretty much every year since then. And everyone’s in jersey and most of them are with Alex’s name on the back.”

Former Capitals forward Jeff Halpern, who assisted on Ovechkin’s first two NHL goals, grew up in Potomac, Maryland, and his parents were season-ticket holders since the team’s inception in 1974. He remembers the passion for the team among hockey fans in the area previously, but Ovechkin’s arrival spurred an interest that spread beyond that niche following.

“I think the hockey community was very good in Washington, but I think it was just the hockey community really that was following the Caps,” said Halpern, now an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning. “There were some really good teams in the ‘80s, ‘90s and even the early 2000s, but nobody captivated the entire city the way he’s been able to do.

“He single-handedly turned the DC market into a hockey market because of that. He turned the entire city into something it wasn’t before.”

The "Ovechkin effect" on the growth of the hockey in the Washington area has been well chronicled. According to USA Hockey's annual report, there were 12,856 registered players in Washington (422), Maryland (6,450) and Virginia (5,984) in Ovechkin's rookie season of 2005-06. That number had grown to 21,975 in Washington (1,201), Maryland (10,164) and Virginia (10,610) in USA Hockey's most recent report in 2023-24, an increase of 71 percent.

Ovechkin founded “Ovi's 8's” in 2006 to provide underserved children with tickets to Capitals games and has been an ambassador for American Special Hockey Association since 2014, hosting on-ice skating sessions and other events. His work to help grow the game earned the Moscow native the 2019 Wayne Gretzky International Award, established by the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1999, to honor international individuals who have made major contributions to the growth and advancement of hockey in the United States.

“It’s been great to see the popularization of hockey in the DC area,” Ovechkin said. “It’s tremendous. It’s not only me, it’s all those guys. All this organization tried to do lots of great stuff for the community, and it’s nice to be part of it.”

Ovechkin has been part of it for 20 seasons. Driven by his desire to play his entire career with Washington, he followed his 13-year, $124 million contract ($9.538 million average annual value) that expired in 2021 with a five-year, $47.5 million deal ($9.5 million AAV) designed partially for him to break the goal record before its end. It appears he’ll do that with one season remaining.

But Ovechkin made an important stipulation before he agreed to that contract.

“The one thing he said was, “You have to promise me we’ll have a great team. If we have a great team, everything else will take care of itself,” Leonsis said.

The Capitals (49-18-9) have kept that promise and lead the Eastern Conference with 107 points. Ovechkin has held up his end of the deal too.

He’s on his way to leading Washington in goals for the 20th straight season. His 894th goal was also his 136th game-winner, breaking the NHL record he shared with Jaromir Jagr.

“He’s scored some huge goals for us,” Wilson said. “Everyone is so focused on the record, but he’s playing amazing hockey and he’s a legend. So, he’s able to just continue to score huge goals for this team and he’s stepping up and he’s been a huge part of the success of our team this year.”

* * *

“He’s a freak athlete”

Flying back to North America after finishing a disappointing fifth at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the Russian players were on the same charter as those from Finland. Ovechkin approached Teemu Selanne, who had helped Finland win bronze in Sochi at 43 years old, seeking the secret to his longevity.

“He wanted to know how I trained or how I did different things,” Selanne said. “It just shows how much he cares about hockey and how much he wanted to play for a long time too. He’s turning 40 this fall, [but] he’s still so strong and playing well.”

Ovechkin acknowledged he’s had to make some changes to his training later in this career to continue playing at a high level. That’s included beginning to work with personal trainer Pavel Burlachenko following the 2016-17 season. Ovechkin had dropped from 50 goals in 2015-16 to 33 in 2016-17, when the Capitals were ousted by the Penguins in the second round of the playoffs for the second straight season. He realized he needed to try something different.

Ovechkin has avoided discussing most of the specifics of his regimen with Burlachenko, other than that it involves some running (not his favorite) and it’s focused primarily on trying to help him maintain his speed and strength. Whatever they do has produced results.

Ovechkin rebounded in 2017-18 to lead the NHL with 49 goals and helped the Capitals win the Stanley Cup, and he’s continued to produce despite his age. His 893rd goal was also his 40th this season, making him the first player in League history with at least three 40-goal seasons after his 35th birthday (also 2021-22, 2022-23), topping Selanne and Johnny Bucyk, who had two each.

“He’s always been a machine,” Wilson said. “He’s always worked hard. He’s fun as a person, he has fun away from the rink, but then at the rink he’s putting in the work. He’s in the gym, he’s doing squats. He wants to be the best.”

Listed at 6-foot-3 and 238 pounds, Ovechkin has played with a rare combination of offensive skill and physicality throughout his career that Gretzky noted is rare.

“I’ve said this before, there’s three guys that have played the game with finesse, physical and smartness, and that was Gordie Howe, Mark Messier and Ovechkin,” Gretzky said. “Those three guys are in their own category.”

Along with being tied for first in goals, Ovechkin is third in NHL history with 3,735 hits. It started with his first shift in the League when he delivered such a violent check on defenseman Radoslav Suchy that it dislodged a pane of glass behind the Blue Jackets net.

“By no means do I want to label Europeans or Russians a certain way, but you don’t see many bring physicality early like that,” Zubrus said. “And here’s a young guy, 20 years old, he comes in and even then he was already a strong kid. He was a little bull.”

Although Ovechkin still has a physical element to his game, he budgets his hitting a little now as a concession to his age.

“I think when you get older, you try to not run around, like try to find the right spot,” he said.

An area in which Ovechkin seems to have defied convention -- and change -- has been his diet. Chicken parmigiana from local Italian chain Mamma Lucia remains his go-to meal before home games, and he routinely picks up a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a foot-long “Spicy Italian” sub from Subway on his way to the airport for the start of road trips.

Ask Ovechkin about the key to his longevity, and he responds, “Obviously, you have to stay healthy, first of all.” He has been highly successful in doing that; before being sidelined for 16 games with a fractured fibula from Nov. 21-Dec. 23, Ovechkin had missed only 35 games because of injury in his career, and never more than six games in a row.

“He’s an animal,” Carlson said. “He’s a freak athlete.”

* * *

“He lives life to the fullest”

Strome’s first encounter with Ovechkin at the Capitals’ practice facility before the start of training camp in 2022 provided an immediate glimpse into the personality of the man who would become his frequent linemate.

“We heard that he was getting back from Russia, and he walked right in and gave every single guy in the whole room a hug and ‘nice to meet you’ or a ‘nice to see you again’ or whatever,” Strome said. “Knowing him now for a couple years, that’s like the least surprising thing ever. … That’s who he is. He lives life to the fullest.

“Just loves coming to the rink, loves the boys, really enjoys being around everyone.”

Carlson, Ovechkin’s longest-tenured active teammate, said he’s “not quite the same, but in the same genre” as the Ovechkin he met at the start of his first NHL training camp in 2008 -- “welcoming, brash, loud, laughing.”

“He’s changed things up along the way,” Carlson said. “But I think he’s still the same big kid.”

Ovechkin’s youthful exuberance is evident each time he celebrates a goal. It usually includes a primal scream, the pumping of both fists, a wide, toothy grin and hugs with his teammates before he kisses his glove and points to the sky to salute his late brother, Sergei.

“He just loves to score goals, so when you get in there, it’s a cool feeling,” Wilson said of an Ovechkin goal celebration. “Likewise, when anyone else scores a goal, he’s the most excited guy.

“There’s something about pucks going into the back of the net. He just loves every bit of it.”

Ovechkin notes how he’s matured off the ice, though, from his early days living it up with Backstrom, Green and the Capitals other “Young Guns.” He still feels the strongest connection with Backstrom from their shared experiences that led to the Stanley Cup win in 2018.

“We’ve been through ups and downs, losing, battles,” Ovechkin said. “But we’ve been together since Day 1 since he came here, and we’ve grown up together as young guys and became fathers and became who we are now.”

The biggest difference between young Ovi and the Ovi of now?

“Right here, those two guys,” he said, pointing to sons, Sergei, 6, and Ilya, 4, as they ran around the locker room after a recent practice.

Family has always been an important to Ovechkin, and he credits his late father, Mikhail, a former professional soccer player, his mother, Tatyana, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in basketball, and brothers with doing, “everything” for him.

“They did a tremendous job to help me out when I was a teenager and right now still,” he said.

Having his own family with wife Nastya, who he married in 2016, has added another element to Ovechkin’s pursuit of Gretzky’s record. At games Sergei, who is named for his late uncle, attends, he will sit by the glass and celebrate each goal with his father, who will high-five or fist-bump him through the glass, as he did each time he scored Friday.

Ovechkin will also wave to Ilya, who usually sits in the stands with Nastya.

“It’s going to be forever, you know?” Ovechkin said of those moments with his sons. “It’s on TV, it’s on the internet, and when those guys are grown up, they’re probably not going to remember that, but when they’re going to have their own kids, they’re going to show them and say, ‘Watch your grampa. He did a pretty good job.’”