Burning Questions: How close will Ovechkin get to Gretzky's record in 2023-24?
Burning Questions: How close will Ovechkin get to Gretzky's record in 2023-24? originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Capitals’ training camp is quickly approaching, and the 2023-24 regular season won’t be far behind. To get you all caught up after a busy offseason, Monumental Sports Network’s Ethan Cadeaux and Matt Weyrich are examining the 10 biggest burning questions surrounding the team heading into the new campaign.
If there’s one Capitals player for whom there are very few questions about heading into the 2023-24 season, it’s Alex Ovechkin. Washington’s captain has been the model of consistency for the better part of the last two decades and his production has never wavered even as he has aged deep into his 30s.
That consistency has put him on track to challenge Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record of 894, which has stood for 24 years. With Ovechkin sitting 72 goals back of the mark, that streak will almost certainly extend for at least one more year. Only nine times has a player scored 72 or more goals in a season, and it hasn’t happened since 1992-93.
Even so, Ovechkin will have the opportunity to put a serious dent in that deficit and set himself up to overtake Gretzky as soon as 2024-25. The soon-to-be-38-year-old is coming off a 42-goal season, scoring an average of 0.58 goals per game just below his career mark of 0.61. While he missed several games due to a few minor injuries and the passing of his father, Ovechkin’s durability has been one of his most dependable assets throughout his career.
Should Ovechkin play a full 82-game season, his career scoring average would put him on pace to score 50 goals. For those skeptical that Ovechkin’s average is being propped up by some of the prolific seasons from his 20s, his scoring average over the last three seasons is 0.59 (a pace of 48 goals for a full season).
Perhaps the most significant wrinkle for Ovechkin’s goal-scoring pace is the impact new head coach Spencer Carbery’s power-play system will have on his special teams success. Ovechkin holds the record for the most power-play goals in NHL history and only twice in his career has he failed to finish with a PPG total in the double digits.
Ovechkin was still prolific on the power play last season (14 PPGs), and the Capitals are hopeful that Carbery’s system will allow the rest of the unit around him to take a step forward. The more ways the Capitals can score with the man advantage, the more open shots Ovechkin will have the opportunity to take from his office.
Set to enter his age-38 season, Ovechkin is in rare territory where the only precedent for this level of success is himself. He holds the records for the most goals by a player in his age-34 (48), age-36 (50) and age-37 (42) seasons and duplicating any of those numbers would allow him to surpass Brett Hull’s mark of 37 for the most at age 38.
History suggests Ovechkin is chasing the impossible, but he has continued to defy those odds to the point where Gretzky is rooting for him to break it. After moving into second place by passing Gordie Howe’s total of 801 last season, all that stands in front of him now is the Great One. The 2023-24 campaign offers him a chance to gain some serious ground.
