As if COVID-19 hasn’t already taken enough from us.
Alex Ovechkin will be making his push for the NHL goal-scoring record in the next few seasons. Currently at 706, Ovechkin’s season was cut short in March, making it that much harder to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s ridiculous 894 goals.
At the age of 35, Ovechkin’s goal-scoring pace hasn’t yet showed any significant signs of slowing down. But now, he faces a road block that even he won’t be able to overcome. The road block in question: not enough games to be played.
There’s no telling how long Alex Ovechkin will continue to play, especially considering that he’s been remarkably injury free (knock-on-wood). He has missed more than four games only once in his career, and even then was only ten games. But how will the season being cut short affect our beloved sniper?
He needs to score 189 more times in his career if he wants the crown. This averages out to about 38 goals over five seasons or 48 over four. Given his current goals per game ratio, and the aforementioned fact that he has maintained a very steady pace, this seems doable. We wouldn’t be talking about it if it wasn’t.
Now comes the difficult part: COVID-19 has once again derailed the NHL season.
Lots of theories are being thrown around, but it seems likely that there will be somewhere between 48 and 65 regular season games played in 2021. That’s a substantial chunk when it comes to Ovechkin’s schedule.
Ovechkin’s GPG will likely regress to some extent due to his age (it happens to everyone). Because of this, it was imperative that Ovechkin play as many games as possible, which would allow his GPG rate to dip slightly in the twilight of his career. Now, there’s even less room for error.
Lots of factors come into play with something like this. His playing style may change to accommodate for being older and/or slower. Ovechkin could decide not to retire until he reaches the milestone, or to retire early, either one of which would render our worry useless. Also of note, the Washington Capitals’ core is getting older, and their competitive window is closing as a result. A less competitive team means less goals being scored in the first place.
Regardless of outside factors, COVID-19 is doing nothing to help him in his journey. The pandemic and its effects have obviously been far-reaching, but we won’t know the severity of it for years down the road (at least in Ovechkin’s case). It would be a shame to see Ovechkin fall just short of a record that could very well have been broken under normal circumstances. But here’s to keeping hope alive.
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