Despite Decline, Ovechkin Should Still Break The Great One's Scoring Record

Alexander Ovechkin is the greatest goal-scorer of the modern era and he inches closer and closer to Gretzky's 894 career goal mark. But with a noticeable decline this season, can Ovechkin still surpass The Great One?

There’s no denying that Alex Ovechkin’s best days are behind him.

At 38, Ovechkin, the greatest scorer of the Modern Era, is slowing down. After 18 seasons of being a virtual lock for 40 to 50 goals a year, Ovechkin is on pace for a career-low 24 goals this season (excluding his output from the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season).

Naturally, seeing Ovechkin decline ought to make one wonder if him breaking Gretzky’s goal record is as inevitable as it always seemed. But the reality is that Ovechkin's decline and the probability of him breaking The Great One’s record are not mutually exclusive. A closer examination of his 19th NHL season reveals that Ovechkin’s down year isn’t as bad as you’d think.

It’s just a slump, or rather, a tale of two seasons. Ovechkin was unrecognizable in the 2023 portion of this season, recording seven goals in his first 34 games of the year. To put that into perspective, his 0.21 goals per game output would equate to a 17-goal season across 82 games.

“If you followed at the beginning of the year, his puck luck — in terms of shooting percentage — was astronomically low for his career,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery told The Hockey News on Monday.

Ovechkin, who had a career 12.9 shooting percentage entering the season, was converting on just 5.56 percent of his shots in his first 34 games this year.

“You’ve got to factor a couple of things in,” Carbery explained. “Our team is a totally different team without the Nick Backstroms or (Evgeny Kuznetsovs) playing at a high level. Now, we’re starting to move into the next phase and he’s playing with a lot of young players that are just trying to get themselves acclimated into the National Hockey League, let alone set up the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game — or one of them.”

Since Jan. 1, though, Ovechkin has flipped a switch. ‘The Great 8’ has quietly looked closer to his peak self, recording 12 goals in 29 games — which is a 34-goal pace across an 82-game season (0.44 goals per game).

As Ovechkin approaches his forties, it would be shortsighted to attribute the first half of the year as a mere outlier. But then again, when you’re talking about Ovi’s chances of breaking the record — which is all he has to play for at this point — the road remains paved for him to get there, even as his game has declined.

Ovechkin needs 54 more goals to surpass Wayne Gretzky (894) as the NHL’s all-time scoring leader. If you operate under the assumption that this contract — which expires at the end of the 2025-26 season — is his last, Ovechkin has up to 180 games to catch Gretzky (if he stays healthy). In other words, Ovechkin needs to score at a 25-goal pace from here on out to break the record. Seeing him drop to below a 10 percent shooting percentage (8.6) this year may make you think there’s no chance but this is a common trend among the game's greatest scorers. For example, Gretzky had a 9.2 percent shooting percentage in his final three years. Other snipers like Brett Hull and Jaromir Jagr took a dip in shooting percentage in their final three seasons, too.

But you know what separates Ovi from everyone else? He fires the puck at the net way more.

NHL Top Five Goal-Scorers of All-Time

Wayne Gretzky: 894 Goals, 3.42 Career Shots/GP

Alex Ovechkin: 841 Goals, 4.66 Career Shots/GP

Gordie Howe: 801 Goals, 4.13 Career Shots/GP

Jaromir Jagr: 766 Goals, 3.25 Career Shots/GP

Brett Hull: 741 Goals, 3.84 Career Shots/GP

The Caps are also going to make sure they do everything they can to help him break the record.

If Ovechkin was on a contending team trying to win a Stanley Cup, he’d probably struggle to get such ideal deployment — be it in zone starts, linemates and overall ice time. But he’s not.

Washington isn’t making the playoffs this year — which is probably a good thing for the aging Russian sniper's durability — but there’s a chance they’ll be more competitive next year. Armed with surplus draft capital after being sellers for the last two years, Capitals GM Brian MacLellan has lots of ammo to bring in a creative passer that Ovechkin needs. Nobody expected both Backstrom and Kuznetzov to decline, let alone depart so swiftly, and Ovechkin benefitted from those two elite passers more than anyone else.

If Ovechkin finishes the second half of the season strong, and the Caps restructure their lineup slightly this offseason — there’s no doubt that the greatest goal-scorer of the Modern Era will become the greatest of all-time.

Correction: The number of NHL goals Gordie Howe scored is 801.