WASHINGTON — Sometime soon — Sunday maybe, perhaps Thursday — Alex Ovechkin will reach the summit.
In a career jammed with consequential goals, none will be remembered more than the next one. We’ll talk about it then, and we’ll do it in the grandest of terms, because that’s how it all works.
To say he’s chasing immortality, whole cloth, would be incorrect; that’s a fish he caught long ago. He is, though, still chasing something. The biggest record in his sport. The biggest name. The biggest number. Scoring one goal is hard. Scoring more of them than anyone else, ever, is something else, and Ovechkin is about to walk through that door.
On Friday night, he knocked.
Ovechkin began the Washington Capitals’ game against the Chicago Blackhawks with 892 goals, three away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career record. He finished it with 894. He was inches away from 895. And 896. And 897.
On a different night, in a different set of circumstances, that would qualify as some sort of disappointment. There are six games left on Washington’s regular-season schedule — starting with Sunday’s road game against the New York Islanders — which makes breaking the record a near-certainty. Just two of those games, though, are at Capital One Arena, in front of the fans who love him most. If you’re shooting for the dream scenario, that bit of math isn’t kind.
Still, what Ovechkin got on Friday night — what he gave the people in attendance, and the way he gave it to them — was more than good enough.
“Everybody here saw it,” longtime teammate Tom Wilson said. “Everybody in the building got to experience it. Everybody in this locker room got to be a part of it.”
Wayne Gretzky – 894 goals in 1487 games
Alex Ovechkin – 894 goals in 1486 games#Gr8Chase pic.twitter.com/UPNuT6ExyE– NHL (@nhl) April 5, 2025
If you doubted that Ovechkin would make a run at the record on Friday night, you haven’t paid attention. It’s not just about his resume, either, remarkable as it is; it’s about how he’s played over the last few weeks. He had scored in each of his last three games. He hadn’t gone more than two games without a goal since Jan. 1. For the season, somehow, he was clipping along at a 54-goal pace, waylaid only by a broken leg — and far more briefly than the standard-issue 39-year-old would be out.
In hockey, nothing is truly inevitable. The margins are too slim. The game, by definition, is too chaotic. Ovechkin, though — scoring in bunches, and doing it early — is as close as you can get.
Dylan Strome realized that. Since joining the Capitals in 2022, he has assisted on more Ovechkin goals than anyone else: 44 and, at the start of the night, 19 this season. The crowd chanting Ovechkin’s name louder and longer than ever before, until the moment the puck dropped, was a clue.
“We were kind of saying before the game if he gets one in the first, then look out because he seems to score in bunches,” Strome said. “Everyone knew what was happening.”
And it happened quickly. Ovechkin, 3 minutes, 52 seconds into the game, and on his second shift, went post-in on Blackhawks goalie Spencer Knight. Chicago, somehow, lost him at the bottom of the right circle. The feed, naturally, came from Strome. No. 893.
If you asked the biggest Ovechkin fan to imagine one of his goals — to come up with the platonic ideal — it would’ve been No. 894. With 13:47 remaining and the Capitals on the power play, defenseman John Carlson shuffled the puck to Ovechkin, who was waiting in the left faceoff dot. He beat Knight more cleanly and in a tighter window than the first time.
Only Nicklas Backstrom has set up more of Ovechkin’s goals than Carlson. The two won the Stanley Cup together in 2018, with Ovechkin as the team’s best player and Carlson as its best defenseman.
Carlson, like Strome, was impressed. He wasn’t surprised.
“It just seemed like one of those days that when guys that are larger than life like him — anybody else going for anything else probably wouldn’t have happened,” Carlson said. “But the greats of the greats of the greats just find a way to do it and do it in theater and in style, and tonight was no different.”
The ovation Ovechkin received lasted, give or take, six minutes. The chants started, and they didn’t stop. Ovechkin took time to celebrate with his teammates, who joined him on the ice. “We kind of looked at each other (on the bench) and just said like, ‘Screw it, I’m going,’” Wilson said.
He pointed to the sky in tribute to his brother Sergei, who died when he was 10. He celebrated with his wife, Nastya, and his son — also Sergei, of course — along the glass.
He turned also toward the man whose company he’d just joined, and whose company he’ll soon leave, and paid tribute.
“Just seeing him skate over and bow down to Wayne’s box, it was just shivers,” Wilson said. “It was just something that everyone dreams of being a part of, and to have a front-row seat and see him — I’m just so proud of him and so happy for him.”
An hour or so after the game, Ovechkin and Gretzky were seated together at District E, an open-air theater across from the arena. With a “Gr8 Chase” backdrop behind them, flanked a tub of Bud Light tall boys, the two legends answered questions about the moment and its meaning. Gretzky was gracious and funny; Ovechkin was relaxed and, he said, relieved.
He had jokes, too. He ribbed Strome for bouncing a pass off Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy and past Knight in the third period, rather than giving him a shot at a wide-open net. He gently corrected Gretzky, too, for assuming that Ryan Leonard’s empty net goal came at Ovechkin’s expense. It was his moment — maybe the biggest he’ll have in front of Capitals fans — and he was in it.
“I’m still a little shaking and still can’t believe it,” he said. “I just talked to my family yesterday and my father-in-law asked, ‘How do you keep your energy, your mind?’ And I just said like, ‘I just enjoy it,’ because it’s a huge opportunity. It’s history.”
He made it on Friday. And in due time, he’ll make it again.
(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)