Sidney Crosby Congratulates Alex Ovechkin After Breaking Wayne Gretzky's NHL Record
Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby congratulated Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin for becoming the NHL's leader in career goals scored on Sunday.
"Ovi, it's been an honor to compete against you all these years," Crosby said. "Over that time, you've accomplished so many milestones. But this one was probably thought to be impossible, and you found a way to do it. Congratulations on scoring the most goals in NHL history."
Ovechkin surpassed NHL legend Wayne Gretzky with his 895th career goal in the second period of the Capitals' clash with the New York Islanders.
Crosby sits at No. 18 on the all-time list, while his 622 career goals are also the second-most among active players.
Both Ovechkin and Crosby made their NHL debuts during the 2005-06 season and have spent their entire careers with their respective teams, operating as Eastern Conference rivals.
Ovechkin reflected on his history with Crosby in Nov. 2024.
"It's pretty amazing how much time flies," Ovechkin told Tom Gulitti of NHL.com. "I think it's just cool stuff when my first couple years there was a rivalry like Ovechkin-Crosby and everybody was pumped about it -- the fans, you guys (the media). It would give you more motivation, more energy when you step on the ice."
The 39-year-old hasn't shown many signs of slowing down during his 2024-25 campaign with Washington, as his 41 goals scored entering Sunday's actionĀ rankedĀ No. 3 in the NHL.
Crosby has also remained a key contributor for the Penguins in his 20th year with the team, recording 56 assists and 86 points in 75 games. He's recorded a point in each of his past 12 appearances.
As both veterans look to close out the 2024-25 season strong, Crosby praised Ovechkin for his historic achievement on Sunday.
Alex Ovechkin Breaks Wayne Gretzky's All-Time NHL Goalscoring Record with No. 895
Alex Ovechkin stands alone as the most prolific goal-scorer in NHL history.
The Washington Capitals legend passed Wayne Gretzky on the all-time scoring list with his 895th career goal in the second period of Sunday's game against the New York Islanders.
Gretzky has been the NHL's all-time leading goal-scorer when he passed Gordie Howe's record in March 1994. The Great One retired after the 1998-99 season, he amassed 894 goals.
At the time, Howe (801) was the only other player with at least 750 goals. JaromĆr JĆ”gr eventually became the third member of the 750 club.
The 800-goal club added a third member when Ovechkin hit the milestone with a hat trick against the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 13, 2022. The Blackhawks were again witness to history when he tied Gretzky's mark with 894 goals on April 4.
Ovechkin was pegged as a potential star even before he was drafted with the No. 1 overall draft pick by the Capitals in 2004. He didn't make his NHL debut until the 2005-06 season due to the lockout that wiped out the entire 2004-05 campaign.
The Russian superstar scored 52 goals in his first season, the third-most ever by a rookie in NHL history. It also kicked off a string of five consecutive years with at least 46 goals to start his career.
Ovechkin has led the league in goals scored a record nine times. No other player has accomplished the feat more than seven times.
Even now, at the age of 39 and 20 seasons into his NHL career, Ovechkin has never really experienced a down period. The only time he failed to score at least 30 goals in a season was 2020-21 when the scheduled was shortened to 56 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ovechkin was already a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer no matter where he finished on the all-time goals list. He just further cemented his status as the best scorer in NHL history by surpassing Gretzky's record that had stood for 26 years.
Alex Ovechkin Ties Wayne Gretzky's All-Time NHL Goalscoring Record with No. 894
Alex Ovechkin has tied Wayne Gretzky for the most goals in NHL history.
Ovechkin scored career goals 893 and 894 on Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The goals marked Ovechkin's 40th and 41st of the season in what has been a historically dominant age-39 campaign.
Gretzky was 38 when he scored his record 894th goal on March 29, 1999 during his 20th and final NHL season with the New York Rangers.
It took Gretzky 1,479 regular season games to set a standard previously seen as untouchable. Ovechkin tied the record in the 1,486th regular season game of his career.
Gretzky's record hinged on an unprecedented run of dominance with the 1980s Edmonton Oilers. He became the first and only NHL player to score more than 90 goals in a season in 1982 and topped 70 goals in each of his next three campaigns.
Gretzky's goalscoring rate then dropped off later in his career. He scored nine goals in 70 games during his final NHL season.
Ovechkin, who played through some of the lowest-scoring seasons in modern NHL history, hasn't topped 60 goals in a single season since 2008.
Although Gretzky's goalscoring peaks will remain uncontested, Ovechkin's consistency has been unmatched. Outside of the shortened 2020-21 campaign, Ovechkin hasn't scored fewer than 30 goals in a season since entering the league in 2007.
Ovechkin hit the 30-goal milestone for a record 19th time during his age-39 campaign this season, despite missing over a month of play after suffering a fractured fibula in November.
The Capitals captain will now get the chance to break Gretzky's record in short order.
Washington's next game is scheduled for Sunday against the New York Islanders.
Alex Ovechkin Breaking Wayne Gretzky's Goal Record Shows Nothing Is Impossible
Wayne Gretzky, to fans of a certain age, was a perpetual source of astonishment.
He reached Canadaās hockey radar as a 10-year-old. He had 110 points in the old WHA during the season in which he turned 18. And by the time he was 21, letās just say he was pushing things to a place no one had imagined, let alone seen.
Well, heās not so alone in the stratosphere anymore.
When Alex Ovechkin beat New York Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin with a power-play wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle to get to 895 and officially nudge Gretzky off the top line of the all-time list, it was the pinnacle (for now) of a two-decade journey that began when he arrived from Moscow as the top overall pick in 2004.
"I could tell you first hand how hard it is to get to 894," Gretzky said at the post-goal celebration at center ice in UBS Arena on Sunday. "So 895 is pretty special."
Ovechkin spoke broken English and was a 20-year-old fish out of water when he got started in the U.S. capital, but anyone who knew a hockey stick from a pretzel stick could tell he was exceptional.
Maybe it was his willingness to mix it up. Maybe it was a wicked one-timer that, even in primordial stages, was lethal. Or maybe it was the sheer giddiness he got from playing.
A Calder Trophy and the predictable run of All-Star nods and other hardware followed.
And by the time he finished his fifth NHL season and had already amassed 269 goalsāan annual average of nearly 54āperhaps the most optimistic Capitals fan may have whispered among friends that heād someday make a run at Gretzkyās high-water mark.
But it still seemed so far away.
Because Gretzky finished his career in 1999 with 894 goals. Which, at the time, was 93 more than the No. 2 man on the list, Gordie Howe, whoād played in nearly 300 more games.
Let that sink in for a Ruthian minute. Thatās 93 more goals than a guy called āMr. Hockeyā in what amounts to three-and-a-half fewer seasons.
So it was no wonder, as a 38-year-old Gretzky left Madison Square Garden that spring and made post-retirement rounds in Edmonton a few months later, that no one in their right statistical minds anticipated itād be a conversation weād have again.
Ex-teammate Mark Messier was the next-nearest active player at the time, and he was 284 goals behind and already running on fumes on a career that ended in 2004.
For a player to even approach the recordāletās say, to get as far as Howe had goneāheād have to average 40 goals per season for 20 years, in a league where scoring 40 even a handful of times provides fast-track consideration for the Hall of Fame.
Forget kind of doubtful or even highly unlikely.
This was full-on impossible. Or, if you prefer, IMPOSSIBLE.
And given the nightly pounding Ovechkin put his body throughāyielding averages of 206 hits and 31 blocked shots per seasonāit was a reach to think heād be much more than a bruised, battered husk by the time he got within legitimate conversational distance.
Gretzky, who was no physical force, was hardly the player at 38 that heād been at 18 or 28, missing 35 games in 1992-93 after back surgery and never scoring more than 25 goals after a 38-goal, 130-point last stand with Los Angeles in 1993-94.
And Howe, though a marvel for playing effectively into his 50s, scored in the 20s and teens more often (six times) than not across his final nine NHL seasons, earning his eventual place in history as much by high-end longevity as high-end production.
The Russian machine, though, has (almost) never broken.
Ovechkin has been just as remarkable for his durability as his production, playing in no fewer than 72 games in any of his first 19 seasons, outside of schedules impacted by labor strife (2012-13) or COVID-19 (2019-20, 2020-21).
He scored no fewer than 31 goals in any full season and arrived this fall having passed Howe for second place. Ironically, his first major injury occurred as the Gretzky chase kicked into gear, coming when he fractured his left leg in a collision with Utahās Jack McBain in November.
Itās a season-wrecker for many. Ovechkin missed a month.
And just to remind folks who they were dealing with, he scored four times in his first five games back and hadnāt stoppedānetting at least one in 23 of 42 post-injury games through Saturday.
In fact, this record-breaking season had already been among the best of his career, with 41 goals in 60 games translating to a per-game rate of 0.683āstill within reasonable distance of 2007-08 and 2008-09, when he was a youngster at 22 and 23 years old, respectively, and averaged .752 over 161 games.
These days, in case you didnāt know, heās 39.
Itās translated to the bigger picture, too, helping Washington to both the leagueās best record and genuine love from DraftKings, which ranks its title chances second only to defending champion Florida in the East.
Given that the Caps were swept last spring, and their offseason moves, while prudent, were hardly transcendent, itād be easy to tag the 2024-25 ascension with words like surprising, unexpected and even remarkable, regardless of when it ends.
Still, even if youāre not sold on a deep run for them, weāll go ahead and bet thereās now one specific word youāll think twice about using for as long as Ovechkin is involved.
Go ahead. We dare you.