The Great 8

We are witnessing the changing of the tide. The young players that helped resurge the NHL after the doom of the 2005 lockout are now getting, shall we say, “old.” Now this term is relative to professional athletics where being 35 years of age is ancient, but regardless, some of the players that we saw as kids revitalize a complete sport are now sporting some gray hairs. Syd, Ovi, Kaner, Stamkos, and Petro are now grizzled vets.

Ovechkin recently passed the obscene number of 275 powerplay goals scored in the NHL. There are roughly only 250 players who have scored that many goals in their careers. At the time of this being written, he is only about 10 goals short of passing Jamir Jagr for 3rd all time in goals scored at 766 all time. Over the last handful of seasons, he has scored at around 2 goals every 3-game pace.

The question being asked everywhere isn’t about if he’ll become the 3rd 800 goal scorer and pass Gordie Howe at 801, that is more of a when question, it’s whether he will statistically go down as the greatest goal scorer in league history and track down the great 99 and 894 goals. Even slowing his production down over the next 4 seasons to a goal every other game, it would take almost the full 4 seasons to reach that benchmark. Many will agree that even coming close to Gretzky’s record in a day in age where scoring is much harder to come by puts Alex in front of Wayne in goal scoring ability.

Ovechkin is obviously going to be placed in the Mt. Rushmore of goal scorers, and to many, in the top handful of players ever to step foot on the ice. He has decimated his peers with his scoring ability going back to his time playing in the most elite youth hockey tournaments like the 18U World Junior Championships. Where does he rank for you? Leave us a comment on Facebook on if you think Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer of all time.