NHL, Alex Ovechkin into legend

Twenty-six years after it was set by Wayne Gretzky, the record of 894 goals scored in the regular season of NHL was equaled on the Italian night between April 4 and 5, 2025: who succeeded in a feat that had seemed impossible for years was Alex Ovechkin, a veteran of the Washington Capitals, who in the 5-3 infliction on the Chicago Blackhawks scored a double, coming in to tie the goals scored by “The Great One” at minute 6:13 of the third period, on assists from John Carlson and Andrew Mangiapane.

At the Capital One Arena in Washington, among others, was Gretzky himself, for many the greatest player in ice hockey ever, who came down to the locker room at the end of the game to congratulate the Moscow-born 39-year-old, chosen in the NHL draft with the first overall pick in 2004 and able to play with impressive continuity for twenty’years and to achieve the record despite the cancellation of the 2004-05 season and the reduction to 48 games in the 2012-13 season, in both cases due to the North American Hockey League lockdown.

The record, by the way, is not an end in itself, since Washington (which Ovechkin himself dragged to the title in 2018) is, with six games left in the regular season, firmly in first place in the Eastern Conference and competing for the Presidents’ Trophy, the cup awarded to the team capable of finishing the regular season with the highest overall score, taking into account both conferences.

Ovechkin is one of only three players capable of surpassing 800 goals: in addition to Gretzky there is also another ice legend, Gordie Howe, who stopped at 801 in a professional career that began in 1946 and ended as late as 1980. Compared to Gretzky, incidentally, the Russian was quicker to reach the record, even if only by one match: 1487 was the number of games taken by the Canadian phenomenon to reach 894, 1486 were those, on the other hand, taken by Ovi.