Fleury says he gave Ovechkin 'bit of a boost' in chase of goals record

If Alex Ovechkin ends up breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time NHL record of 894 goals, he will have Minnesota Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury partly to thank.

Having given up 28 goals to the Washington Capitals captain, Fleury finds himself at the top of the list of Ovechkin's most frequent victims, ahead of Henrik Lundqvist (24 goals against), Carey Price (22) and Kari Lehtonen (22).

"I think I gave him a bit of a boost," Fleury told LNH.com. "'Ovi' scored a lot of goals against me. I know I'm the one he's scored the most goals against. But on the flip side, I'm happy to have played so many games against him. There was such a great rivalry with the Caps and with Ovi."

Fleury likely won't start when the Wild host Ovechkin and the Capitals at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday (8 pm; Disney+, MNMT, HULU, ESPN+, TVAS-D, SNP, SNE), so he probably won't see Ovechkin add to his career goal total at his expense. Filip Gustavsson, who has conceded two goals to Ovechkin as a member of the Ottawa Senators, is expected to start for the Wild.

In his most recent game against Ovechkin, Fleury made 28 saves and stopped him in the third round of the shootout to seal a 4-3 win at Capital One Arena on Jan. 2. But Ovechkin still added to his total against Fleury, scoring his 871st NHL goal at 15:08 of the second period against the 21-season veteran.

Ovechkin beat Fleury for the first time on Jan. 25, 2006, the sole Capitals goal in an 8-1 drubbing at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ovechkin was 20 at the time, Fleury, who said he is retiring after this season, was 21.

A little more than 19 years later, the two rivals will cross paths on an NHL rink for what would be their final duel unless the Wild and Capitals meet in the Stanley Cup Final later this season. The 40-year-old Fleury, who is 573-339-95 with two ties in 1,048 games for the Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, Chicago Blackhawks and Wild, points out that the 2025 version of Ovechkin is not all that different from the 2005 edition.

"On the power play, Ovi is still always in the same spot," he noted. "He has such a heavy shot. It's so hard to read his slappers, and there's never a bad pass for him with his one-timers. He brings the puck in, no matter where the pass comes from. I'd say that his shot is still really hard to predict. He also has a big wrister, it's powerful, but the puck rises quickly as well."

In his quest to break Gretzky's record, Ovechkin currently sits at 889 career goals, six away from dethroning The Great One. He has 36 goals in 55 games this season, missing 16 games after fracturing his left fibula on Nov. 18. If he is going to break this record this season, he needs to score the six goals in the Capitals' remaining 11 games.

Fleury believes he will.

"I think he's going to break the record this year," said Fleury. "He reminds me of young Ovi. He's really hungry, he wants to score goals. He's so happy after his goals. Without his injury, he would've finished the season with 50 goals, it's incredible. He always plays with his foot on the gas, he's a tremendous competitor. He's still as dangerous as ever at 39 years old. He missed several games with a broken leg, but he hasn't slowed down since his return. He's still on fire."

Though Ovechkin has shown opposing goalies little mercy over the course of his career, he has recently shown a certain sense of generosity toward those who have helped him climb the all-time goals list.

At the start of 2025, former NHL goalie Pascal Leclaire, who allowed Ovechkin's first two NHL goals, asked for and received a gift from Ovechkin and the Capitals. Ovechkin had sent him a signed jersey with a personal note written inside his famous number 8.

"I wrote an email to the team's communications director (Sergey Kocharov) to tell him that I'd like to receive a souvenir from Ovechkin by reminding them that he had scored his first two goals against me," Leclaire told LNH.com. "The Capitals were playing on the road in Western Canada at the time. About one week later, I got a package in the mail. It's such a nice souvenir."

When told of Leclaire's story, Fleury thought it was a lovely idea.

"If he wanted to give me a jersey, I'd take it," Fleury said with a laugh. "Ovi's about to make history."