By Maxwell Brucks
Having a nickname with the word “great” in it usually means that a player is good at their sport. But for hockey, it is specifically reserved for the best of the best—the elite. On Sunday, April 6, 2025, “The Great One” (Wayne Gretzky) was passed on the all-time goals list by “The Great Eight” (Alex Ovechkin) for most goals scored in NHL history. Gretzky is considered to be the greatest hockey player of all time and still holds the all-time points record, but he lost one more record as Ovechkin rifled in a slap-shot on the power play past Islanders’ goalie Ilya Sorokin to score his 895th NHL (National Hockey League) goal. Hockey fan Campbell Lyons was asked if he thought Ovechkin could break Gretzky’s record, and he responded with, “I’m not surprised that he broke it because of his goal-scoring abilities for so long, but I would be lying if I said that record would be broken any time soon.”
If anyone is looking for the successor to break Ovechkin’s newly set record, that person will most likely be waiting a long time, but there are a couple of candidates with outside shots of getting the record. To start, Ovechkin averages right at .6 goals per game, so a player will have to come close to that pace their entire career. They average two fewer goals per game than Ovechkin, with Leon Draisaitl scoring .5 goals per game and David Pastrnak scoring .51 goals per game, so they may have a longevity chance, but unlikely. The one hopeful candidate at the current moment is Auston Matthews. Matthews plays for Lyons hometown team the Toronto Maple Leafs and when asked if he thinks Matthews could break Ovechkin’s record he said, “[I] do believe so but a little less than before the season started he has been dealing with a massive undisclosed injury and has missed a bunch of time and hasn’t scored at the rate he needs to to get the record also longevity is a massive part and injured early hurts that chance.” To go over more of the math Matthews does average more goals per game than Ovechkin at .63 goals per game. To make this easy, we will say that Ovechkin never scores again in the regular season and retires with 895 goals scored. Matthews, who is in his ninth NHL season, would have to play eleven and a half more seasons at his current games played pace of 69.22 games per year and score 43.61 goals per year. Doing the math shows how truly absurd the longevity and consistency of Alexander Ovechkin are.
As Ovechkin plans to retire after his current season he has left many fans with lasting memories of his time on the ice, so Lyons was asked his favorite memory of Ovechkin, “I believe 2018 playoffs round 1 he beat the lea4-2 in the first round broke my heart and went on to win the cup that year which was bitter sweet because if we won that round the east was wide open but he’s a all-time talent and needed a cup.” Ovechkin and the Capitals look to copy some of that playoff magic Lyons mentions as the Capitals are atop the Metropolitan division heading into the postseason.
