Pretty cool moment this weekend when Alex Ovechkin scored goal number 895 to beat Gretzky’s NHL goal scoring record.
Joel posted the minute it happened and I turned on the TV to see that they had paused the game mid second period to celebrate the accomplishment. I can’t think of another time when they would have stopped mid game for something like this, so that in itself was pretty cool. I also thought it was cool that:
- He broke the record with the same number of games played as Wayne (1487) and in game 1486 when he scored two goals to tie the record he declined to be on the ice at the end of the game when the opposing net was empty.
- Back in November Ovi broke his leg with 27 goals left to go to acheive the record and started skating again just 2 weeks into recovery. How the stars would have to align for him to still break the record in same amount of games that Wayne played.
- The celebration was epic and even looked somewhat painful for a 39 year old man.
- Going up and asking Sorokin for his stick after the game was cool and when Sorokin was asked what he got in return he said “Ovi’s respect”. I am sure he will be happy to be mentioned in this little fragment of history moving forward.
- Being Wayne Gretzky would be fun on all accounts but being flown around by the NHL to make sure he was at all of the games leading up to the record would have been cool. Sidenote, Janet Gretzky is still killing it at 64.
Still No Comparison
I am happy for Ovechkin and I think it’s good for the game of hockey for these records to be reached but let’s be real, he is no Wayne Gretzky. Come and see me when Ovi is the all time points leader in the NHL and I will take you for dinner at the Keg. Not only does Wayne have 894 goals, but he also has 1963 career assists for a total of 2857 points. Ovechkin has played the same number of games but only has 1619 points with only 724 assists. That being said Ovechkin is also 3rd in the NHL in hits with 3735 and I don’t even think they counted hits back in Wayne’s prime because I can’t find that number for him (8 maybe). Messier was out there doing all the banging.
But when it comes down to who would you rather have on your team the +/- solves the debate. After 1487 games played Ovechkin is a plus 62 and in the same number of games Wayne Gretzky is a plus 540. That is nuts to me.
Still a GR8 career and he is not done yet, or is he?
