Ovi: The greatest goal scorer ever?

One of the biggest races we have seen in recent memory is the race with Alex Ovechkin chasing the career goal title, but also his race with time.

“The Great 8” has already cemented himself as one of the best players of all time by creating his own office on the left dot with his one-time slapshot and winning a Stanley Cup in 2018.

As time has gone on, he has been inching closer to Wayne Gretzky’s goal record. When it became a potential achievement in 2020-2021, we saw him step it up an extra bit.

In his age 39 season, he has suffered a fractured fibula and is out for up to six weeks. At the start of the season, he was 41 goals from tying the record, but he started off hot scoring 15 goals in 18 games before the injury.

The potential for him to break the record this year has diminished substantially, but he does have next season, and he doesn’t look like he will retire until he is the sole leader.

While the odds of failure are small, with only 27 more goals until the record, Ovi is still the greatest goal scorer of all time, record or not, and it’s hard to argue.

Gretzky is still the best player of all time, and we will never see a player of his talent again. Gretzky revolutionized the game with his speed and his ability to take over a game by himself. There is a reason he was nicknamed “The Great One” and there’s no argument.

You could take away all of Gretzky’s goals and he would still have the most points in NHL history, but Ovi is still a better pure goal scorer than Gretzky was.

The first argument you always hear is that Gretzky didn’t have to lift the puck, but it’s true. The type of goalie that Gretzky played was a stand-up goalie who rarely ever dropped into the butterfly.

The ability of the goalies now to take away most of the net compared to in the 90s is a huge difference. On top of that, goalies now are experts at baiting shots to one part of the net and taking it away in the blink of an eye.

The overall talent that Ovi has faced is miles above what Gretzky faced. Ovi faced legendary goalies like Carey Price, Marc-Andre Fleury, Pekka Rinne and not to mention Andrei Vasilevskiy, who is already on the Mount Rushmore of goaltenders and the fastest goalie to 300 wins in NHL history.

The pads have gotten bigger since Gretzky’s time, again limiting the amount of the net you have to shoot at. Along with the higher specialization of sports in recent years.

Some of the goalies we see may have been specializing in not only hockey but also goalie since they were kids. The size of the pads, the specialization and the athleticism of the goalies make some of the best goalies we have ever seen.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, the creation of Ovi’s office. Ovechkin specializes in the left dot on the power play. He has scored 316 of his goals on the power play.

What makes his ability to score from that spot is the fact that everyone on the ice, in the stands, and everyone watching from home knows exactly what is coming, and he still pots the same shot game in and game out.

Teams focus a player to shade toward him to avoid that shot, but when that shot is coming at 100 mph, it’s hard to stop.

The next closest active player to Ovi is Sidney Crosby at 599. Crosby is no goal-scoring machine, but he is about 250 goals away from Ovi and being drafted a year later, he doesn’t have time on his side to catch up.

Everyone knows what he’s going to do when on the ice, he’s facing harder competition and better goalies and he is only 26 goals from tying Gretzky. No matter what, he is the best goal-scorer of all time.

Gretzky retired with 894 goals, and Ovechkin is right on his tail with 868 and looks to catch up this year or next.

When he does, it will be a monumental moment in history, because we will probably never see someone come remotely close to these numbers ever again.

Tristan Kunec is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email tqk5432@psu.edu.