Alex Ovechkin on the Verge of 800 Goals and NHL History: NHL Odds, Props

Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe are the only two players to ever score 800 career NHL goals.  That’s pretty good company to be in for Alex Ovechkin, who sits at 780 goals and has never scored less than 24 goals in a season (COVID shortened 2020-21 season).  That’s math even I can do.  Ovechkin will hit 800 this year and he’ll likely do it before Christmas.  That makes the big question, which team will he hit the milestone against?

Pure Scorer

Ovechkin was one of only four 50-goal scorers last season and his total for this year is set at 45.5.  That seems like a fairly attainable target for a player who has hit the 50-goal plateau nine times in his career, tied with Gretzky and Mike Bossy for most 50-goal seasons of all-time.  He’s also had seasons of 49 goals in 2017-18, 48 in 2019-20 and 46 in 2006-07.  He has scored at least 32 goals in every full season over the last 17 years.  If you’re trying to narrow down which team Ovechkin will hit 800 against, consider this.  In each of the last five seasons, this is how many games it took Ovechkin to hit 20 goals:

2017-18: 28 games

2018-19: 27 games

2019-20: 28 games

2020-21: 36 games

2021-22: 25 games

That’s a pretty consistent pace, averaging out to about 28.8 games to hit 20 goals.  Game 28 for the Capitals is Dec. 1 in Seattle and Game 29 is Dec. 3 in Calgary.  Assuming Ovechkin remains healthy, which he has managed to do for most of his career, those are decent value picks as Ovie is +1000 to hit 800 against the Kraken (they also play Seattle at home in Game 32) and +1500 to do it against the Flames.  Winnipeg, Philadelphia and Ottawa have the shortest odds at +700.

Chasing History

The Great 8 has already cemented himself as the best goal scorer of his generation, but he still has more work to do to go down as the best goal scorer of all-time.  He holds the NHL record for most scoring titles (9), most career power-play goals (285), most goals by a Russian-born player (780) and most career overtime goals (24).  The one record that matters, however, is most goals all-time.  Gretzky is first on that list with 894 career goals, while Howe is second at 801.  Ovechkin will pass Howe this year when he scores his 22nd goal and if the 37-year-old can average 39.6 goals per year over the next three seasons, he’ll pass Gretzky for most goals all-time right around his 40th birthday.