'The Great Chase': Alexander Ovechkin empties the tank on history

A performance reminiscent of Albert Pujols's pursuit of 700 home runs two years ago.

In the past calendar year, Alexander Ovechkin has scored 42 goals in 66 games. After a year spent in aging athlete purgatory, the Russian goal machine has bounced back this season. He scored #872 last night, stretching to the ice like he had suddenly shed ten years along with any lingering suspicion of his ability to launch into a season shooting to thrill.

Last year had to create doubts about the chances of Ovechkin catching Wayne Gretzky’s illustrious all-time goals total. He came out of the 2023-24 regular season gate like a lion working with a bum leg. His explosiveness off a play was missing or weakened. The quick step towards the goal when the puck was near evaporated within seconds. He was mortal, at least for a little while. At some point, I thought Kelly Chase (he wants the record left alone) was working his voodoo magic.

The Great 8 had other ideas. He has put 19 pucks into the net this season on 88 shots. In 23 games, Ovechkin has posted 30 points and 13 power play points. He has five goals with the Caps carrying an extra attacker. The most impressive stat is the shooting percentage: 21% is a career best. He’s hungry out there.

The impressive part of this season is that he broke a bone in his foot on Nov. 18 after scoring two against Utah. Following five weeks missed, in the five games since returning, it’s like Ovechkin never left the ice. He has five goals in those five games. All of them wouldn’t have been executed by just any NHL winger. Each and every goal was created by his ability to be exactly where the stick and player needed to be for the goal to happen.

Brett Hull and Teemu Selanne were like that during their playing days. Being in the right place at the right time on a hockey rink doesn’t happen by chance; years and years of repetition collide with natural instincts to create that baby. If the ability to bounce back relied upon 100% physicality, Ovechkin wouldn’t fare as well in today’s softer game. He creates his chances by positioning and having the quickest strike of stick to puck in decades.

At the time of his writing, with a few inches of snow already on the Princeton Heights surface with another eight to ten inches planned for the St. Louis city area, Ovechkin needs just 23 goals to pass Gretzky’s lifetime total. With 43 games left in the regular season, the record may be toast by the time baseball players begin playing fake games in Florida and Arizona.

It’s good for the game. The league needs an old lion who can still hunt like Ovechkin. His big, uncompromising personality helps a game with the appeal of a dry martini made with Jägermeister. The NHL badly needs some boost to make a relevant dent outside the immediate game-loving world. If you’re not a seasoned hockey fan, the game isn’t finding many new faces out of the ordinary influx of families. Connor McDavid is the Gretzky of today, but he isn’t much of a marketing force. He never has been, because the guy won’t focus on anything else before winning the Stanley Cup.

The NHL should be pouring every asset into this chase, one that will happen very soon unless the guy gets hit by a train. He’s already hit a train called the late 30s of a hockey player. He’s already ran into a broken bone this season and made it back three days after Christmas. In the truest sense of the words since Heath Ledger’s Joker perfectly summed up Christian Bale’s Batman, “you’re a freak, like me.”

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That would be Albert Pujols and Ovechkin talking to each other, somewhere sometime down the line. What the Washington Capital is doing reminds me of Pujols’s aggressive chase of 700 home runs in 2022. After a slow start to his St. Louis revival, Pujols caught fire in the second half and started clubbing home runs at a higher rate.

It was as if he knew the end was near for his competing days, and found a way to turn it on one last time. There was logic in the idea that Pujols could have kept swinging in 2023 and added another 20-25 home runs in the DH role. “Maybe” is always the juiciest ingredient in any sports “what if” recipe. In the end, I think he was emptying the tank in his pursuit, using all of his hand-eye persuasion in one St. Louis summer.

If Ovechkin gets 895 this season, I think he calls it a career. The wear and tear must be slowly but surely consuming his body. He can’t just get there and wait for a chance, even if he does cherry-pick like a pro.

Ovechkin exerts so much energy out there at 39 years of age, playing in year 40 may not be as appetizing if the ultimate goal is reached. The hunger for immortality had to fuel his offseason program last summer; you can tell in the face that he feels younger out there. It’s like when Kurt Warner left New York to join the Arizona Cardinals; he looked like Barack Obama before his eight years in the White House.

Records aren’t in fact made to be broken, especially one with a total six shy of 900. Scoring that many goals requires a special kind of resilience. If a player is tough enough to make it that long, it’s best to respect the talent. It’s not a knock on Gretzky to want Ovechkin to break the record. Something tells me Wayne would agree.

One thing he has over Pujols and Gretzky is that he did it all with one team. Ovechkin never left Washington, a place that will look to him as king for all time. After a Rocky-esque knockout a little over a year ago, he’s destined to make history in 2025.

New Year, same Ovie.