When will Alexander Ovechkin break the goals record?

The Great Eight, as some call him, is about to cement his name as the greatest goal scorer in NHL history.

Before 2018, Alex Ovechkin was a great player but hadn’t fully reached his full potential as he had not won a Stanley Cup. In that 2018 season, he led the Capitals to a Stanley Cup win, making him one of the best players of all time. Now, he is just six goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record.

Another great storyline that goes with Ovechkin is that he and Sidney Crosby have been in the league for the same amount of time. They have duked it out their entire careers.

Ovechkin currently has 889 goals and will need to get to 894 to tie the record, and 895 to break it. With nine games left, it is highly likely that he will be able to break the record this year. The question now becomes when he will break it.

Let's start with the first possible game. It is unlikely that he would score six in a game, but he could get two back-to-back hat tricks. This would set up for him to break the record against the Buffalo Sabres on March 30.

That is also a very unlikely possibility but he has done it twice in his career.

Now let's take a look at a very likely possibility. If Ovi was to score a goal in every game it would only take him six games to break the record.

This would set him up to break it against the New York Islanders on April 6. It would be great for him to do it against a Metropolitan team because they have played them so much his entire career.

Another factor with this is that it would be perfect if he did it on home ice. If we look for the likely possibility of this happening it would be against the Chicago Blackhawks, Carolina Hurricanes, or Blue Jackets.

While it would be great for this to happen on home ice there is a much better story for Ovechkin to break it.

As we talked about before, Ovechkin and Crosby have been tied together since the start of their Careers. Although they weren’t drafted together they came into the league at the same time.

They have been battling throughout their entire career but Crosby has always been seen as better than Ovechkin besides for goal-scoring.

The Capitals will play the Penguins in their final game of the season in Pittsburgh. How perfect would it be for Ovi to break it then? Against his biggest foe, he would get the record that Crosby would not be able to get.

It would be a storybook ending to a storybook career since Ovechkin will likely retire after this year if he breaks the record.

No matter what happens we are experiencing history. Ovechkin is the most gifted goal scorer of all time and he will show it when he has the record.

Andrew Matz is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email atm5759@psu.edu.