1414 games and 848 goals into his career, Ovechkin remains an un-breaking Russian machine, as Derek Lalonde and Daniel Sprong explain
1414 games and 848 goals into his career, Ovechkin remains an un-breaking Russian machine, as Derek Lalonde and Daniel Sprong explain
As the calendar flipped from 2023 to '24, you could be forgiven for believing that at last the fabled Russian machine that is Alex Ovechkin was finally breaking. At the very least, the gears were sticking. On January 1st, Ovechkin had just seven goals in 34 games for the season—tracking for a career-low 16 goals for the year.
Since, Ovechkin has exploded in the season's second half for 19 goals in the 33 games he's played in 2024 (good for a 47-goal pace over an 82-game season). He will skate into tonight's game against the Red Wings having scored in five straight, with eight goals during that run. Most striking of all, with his career tally now at 848, Ovechkin is within 50 goals of surpassing Wayne Gretzky as the NHL's all-time most prolific goalscorer.
Ovechkin has spent his career normalizing comparison to his sport's "Great One." His first superstar moment—and perhaps still his greatest—came with Gretzky, then coaching the Coyotes, on the opposing bench in January of 2006. 10 years later, Ovechkin scored his 500th career goal, and the possibility of eclipsing Gretzky's 894 went from a fanciful conversation to a practical one. And that's what stands out most from Ovechkin's decorated career—the way his machinic production has made the immortality at stake by passing Gretzky feel inevitable.
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"He's one of those players you just don't end up being surprised," said Detroit coach Derek Lalonde, when asked about Ovechkin's second half surge and proximity to the record. "Even the game here [in February], we had a really good fortunate schedule. They were in a back-to-back, and they didn't come into our zone maybe the first seven minutes, and their first chance was the puck ping-ponged off two skates, a shin pad, and ends up on Ovechkin's stick in the slot. He just has...an uncanny instinct, hockey sense, where it just finds him. He's that type of player where he's just gonna get his looks. You hope that you limit it."
Lalonde said he expects Ovechkin to surpass Gretzky's record, between the inevitability of the chances coming his way, his finishing skill, and an underrated degree of hockey IQ. "Again, that hockey sense and feel I talked about, the puck finds him, he's gonna get his looks," he said. "And obviously with that shot, he can score from distance at this level. Honestly, he could go out there in a wheelchair and find a way to get Grade A's, and he's gonna find it. He's gonna go down as one of the greatest, and he probably doesn't get enough credit for his IQ."
Ovechkin's signature one-timer from the "Ovi Spot" along the left half-wall is the best illustration of his inevitability. Throughout his career, Ovechkin has been part of one of the league's best power plays, built around the fear that shot inspires, the specter of that one-timer less a threat than a gravitational pull for the opposing penalty kill. It is the league's best-known power play weapon, yet, over and over, Ovechkin—without needing to move—finds himself open for a look from his office and buries it. It's what offers the impression Lalonde gave voice to—that he could be effective if he took the ice in a wheelchair.
Lalonde rightly pointed out that the effectiveness of the other shooting threats on Washington's power play (for nearly a decade now, that's been John Carlson from the point and T.J. Oshie in the "bumper" spot at the heart of the 1-3-1) helps Ovechkin find that space. "The man in the middle that everyone uses so well now, they perfected it," he observed. "I think team's consciously favor [covering Ovechkin]. You don't want to let him tee it up constantly from that area, but that's what good power plays do. They expose all kinds of holes." Yet, without Ovechkin around, containing Carlson and Oshie would seem manageable.
Like other greats of his generation—LeBron James or Lionel Messi—Ovechkin has played long enough for kids who grew up cheering for him to become professional peers. One such example is Detroit defenseman Jake Walman. "That was my favorite player growing up," he said before the Capitals and Red Wings met in late February. "I've watched pretty much all his highlights 10 or 20 times."
"He's got that aura around him," Walman added. "It attracts guys that wanna be like him growing up. That's kinda where I get my motivation on my celebrations and stuff. That passion and energy he has, and he still has it. You can still see it when he scores big goals." Not unlike the Red Wings' Patrick Kane, Ovechkin is the rare NHLer to embrace the idea of playing a star. It's endeared him to fans like Walman, helped revitalize the NHL after the 2004-05 lockout, and differentiated him from his career-long foil, Sidney Crosby.
Detroit winger Daniel Sprong spent a season and a half playing with Ovechkin in Washington, between 2020 and 2022. The high-water mark of their time together came when Sprong scored after looking off the greatest goalscorer ever on a two-on-one, then burst into laughter.
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As he told THN back in November, Sprong had done the same at that morning's skate, only to send the shot "probably by 20 feet," which led him to question the message he received from his captain before every game—"shoot the puck." After the morning's indiscretion, Ovechkin amended the axiom to "shoot the puck, unless I'm open" but Sprong made a worthwhile exception that night.
"He gets targeted a lot," Sprong told THN, giving voice to the same sense of inevitability that Lalonde did. "Guys don't want him to shoot, and he still finds a way to get—I think the other night he had 14, 15 shots against Toronto. He's getting his shots off, but just the way he does it, he finds that space and makes himself available. Everybody knows he wants to shoot it, and they're trying to cover him, and he still finds a way. It's pretty cool to see how he does it."
When asked then about the rumor that Ovechkin drinks Coca-Cola out of a water bottle on the bench in games and practices, Sprong spoke even more directly to his inevitability, paraphrasing a line Ovechkin had offered himself after taking a teammate's shot to the foot back in October 2006: "The only thing I can say is the machine don't break. He's a big boy, and he doesn't break."
1414 games and 848 goals into his career, that line—"Russian machine never breaks"—that he coined himself in just his second year in the NHL remains the best and truest description anyone has come up with for Ovechkin.
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