On Wednesday night, The Washington Capitals will hold a pregame tribute to captain Alex Ovechkin for reaching the 900-goal mark, as well as playing in his 1,500th NHL game.
With Ovechkin now in possession of the NHL’s goal record, as well as now acquiring some of the lesser marks in the league, the question of how Ovechkin compares with Wayne Gretzky, and as someone who saw both stars in their prime, there are probably more differences than similarities, although both ended up in the top two in goal production in league history.
The Great One
Gretzky in the 1980s was a simply dominant player, and one who used his skill and savvy to outmaneuver and outwit defenders. As a playmaker, he had no equal. That cannot be disputed. Even had he never recorded a single goal in his entire NHL career, he’d STILL be the all-time NHL points leader on assists alone.
He had his own office behind the net, where he could either distribute the puck to an attacking winger or attack on his own on the unsuspecting netminder. “The Great One” scored 583 goals in nine seasons in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers between 1979 and 1988, recording 50 goals each season until his last season in Alberta in 1987-88. However, after his first season with the Los Angeles Kings in 1988-89, he never hit the 50-goal mark again, as injuries and age began taking their toll, and while a very effective player during the 1990s, he wasn’t quite the dominant force he was during the Oilers dynasty.
On the other hand, Ovechkin has been a model of consistency throughout most of his career, recording a 50-goal season at age 36 in 2021-22, and also was on pace for over 50 last season despite losing 16 games to a broken leg. Gretzky at age 36 was in the first of a three-year stint with the New York Rangers, where he netted 57 goals in those campaigns combined. Between goals 800 and 900, Ovechkin played 200 games, while Gretzky notched his last 91 goals in 362 games with the Kings, Blues and Rangers. While not as dominant as Gretzky, Ovechkin is still nearly as productive as he was earlier in his career despite losing speed and agility thanks to his blistering shot that knuckles on goaltenders and still remains difficult to stop, even when you know it’s coming.
Both players reached the 894-goal mark in exactly the same number of games, despite a much more even trajectory for the Captials’ captain.
Different eras
Of course, Gretzky also played in the NHL’s highest-scoring era, but he also had to usually carry a policeman on his wing, so it’s unclear how many goals he would have scored not having Dave Semenko or Marty McSorley on his wing. When he entered the NHL from the WHA, pundits wondered if the skinnier Gretzky, who weighed around 185 during his career and stood at 6 feet tall, would survive the more punishing league, and while he thrived, he also needed a degree of protection from teams looking to take a run at the star.
Ovechkin, who weighs around 50 pounds more than Gretzky did during his days and also three inches taller, didn’t shy away from physical play at all, throwing hits in his NHL debut and still trying to deliver bodychecks 20 years later. Ovechkin has been able to largely avoid injury during his career despite the punishing style he plays, missing just the stretch last year with the leg injury. When Ovechkin was skating on a line with less talented players, it was more of a lack of depth than protection.
While Gretzky was able to evade most of the hits thrown his way – or had some help keeping tough guys from trying to make their mark – Ovechkin plays a largely fearless style, even at the age of 40, even tangling with Josh Anderson in front of the Montreal cage this week before Dylan Strome stepped in.
It’s also hard to understate how much of an impact Gretzky had on North America, as during his Edmonton days, it was hard not to find an ad campaign in Canada without the superstar, be it on sodas and on cereal. When he was traded to the Kings in 1988, he put the team on the map, and it’s no exaggeration to say the Anaheim Ducks owe their existence to having him play in Southern California. In a sport that was considered niche in the United States during that period and mostly devoid of U.S. network television coverage, he was able to transcend that and put himself on the level with Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson in national recognition during his Kings days, and even got a chance to host “Saturday Night Live” in 1989.
A shared spotlight
Ovechkin hasn’t reached that level in North America, although he still is largely the face of the league along with Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. Certainly Ovechkin’s impact on hockey in the Washington area has been tremendous, as he took what was a team struggling to sell tickets before the 2004 lockout to one that had an extended sellout streak from 2009 until the COVID attendance restrictions. Of course, in his native Russia Ovechkin is on par with what Gretzky was in Canada during the 1980s, as he is a pitchman for a reported 10 companies and commanding nearly $40 million U.S. for those contracts.
Gretzky’s legacy is also one of being more nomadic during his career, as while he had a strong impact in Edmonton and Los Angeles, he spent a brief stint in St. Louis in 1996 before signing with the Rangers as a free agent for the last three years of his illustrious career. While the trade to the Kings was more financial, the trade to the Blues was part of a rebuilding project, and he spurned an offer to stay in Missouri to join the Rangers on Broadway.
While there have always been suggestions Ovechkin would leave Washington for greener pastures, particularly in 2008 when his rookie contract was expiring it was speculated he would leave the Capitals for Montreal or another venue, it never happened. Ovechkin has remained with the same NHL franchise during his career, and likely will remain so whenever he decides to leave the league. He will skate in another uniform in the future, but it will be Dynamo Moscow, as he was said even from his early years he wanted to finish his career in his native country. That leaves him well ahead of the next player to all his games with one franchise, Steve Yzerman, with 692 goals in the same 1,514 games the two have played.
Both players elevated the sport
Gretzky’s impact helped elevate hockey from the second-tier status it had at the start of his career during the 1980s, but Ovechkin and Crosby helped rescue the league what could have been a devastating loss of the 2004-05 season due to the lockout, an incident that has faded away 20 years later.
So, as Washington celebrates Ovechkin’s accomplishments on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, it’s worth looking back and comparing his career to another star he will forever be intertwined with, spanning different eras but leaving their legacies across their home countries and the NHL. The two were very different players, as while Gretzky was smart, savvy and overall a very complete player, Ovechkin’s power and strength combined with his shot will be tough to duplicate.
But both stars leave their legacies atop the NHL’s goal-scoring chart and no matter how much longer Ovechkin has in the NHL, it’s worth the price of admission to see him play certainly what is a dwindling number of games in North America.
