Can a rapidly declining Alex Ovechkin still break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record?

Credit: Alex Ovechkin (© Daniel Bartel-USA TODAY Sports)

Even though it was a legend’s opinion, I was skeptical.

I was conducting research for a story about Alex Ovechkin’s chase for Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals record, which, at the time, still felt like a tiny cloud on the horizon. It was winter 2020, not long before a pandemic afflicted the Earth, and Ovechkin sat at 706 goals. I was soliciting thoughts from goal-scoring greats on whether ‘Ovi,’ then 34, had a chance to chase down The Great One.

Brett Hull, never one to dip his toe in with a cautious take, said Ovechkin “absolutely” could get to 894 goals, that 188 were “not that many when you score like he does.”

I was impressed by the hot take but admittedly dubious. Ovechkin was already half a decade past what would be the prime for any mortal human being, right?

So, naturally, he ended up winning his NHL-record ninth Rocket Richard that season, becoming the oldest 50-goal scorer in history two years after that and burying 42 goals in just 73 games as a 37-year-old last season. It seemed Hull’s prophecy was ringing true. Entering his age-38 campaign, Ovi needed just 73 goals to pass Gretzky for the all-time crown. Ovechkin’s freakishly age-defiant trajectory suggested he’d get there some time during the 2024-25 season.

It sounds funny to say it about the NHL’s ninth-oldest skater but, given the unprecedented standard he has set in his 30s, few if anyone expected he would struggle as badly as he has over the first 25 games of the Washington Capitals’ 2023-24 season: five goals, including a current 10-game scoring drought. If he doesn’t score in his next game, he’ll have the first 11-game drought of his 19-season career.

Ovechkin has been written off as “in decline” or “finished” plenty of times in his career only to fight back with a monster scoring binge. Any time he has slumped, it typically felt like only a matter of time until he rebounded. And it’s still possible that happens again. His shooting percentage of 5.6 is impossibly low. He still gets tons of scoring opportunities thanks to playing 4:55 per game on the power play, second among all NHLers.

But we can’t simply use his past behavior as a predictor of all his future behavior in this case, because we have to factor in, cliche alert, Father Time. Just because Ovechkin is arguably the greatest age outlier in hockey history, right up there with Gordie Howe, doesn’t mean Ovechkin will continue to age at a measured, sequential pace. Sometimes, the skills fall off a cliff rather quickly.

Look at the legendary Teemu Selanne, for example. He was incredibly productive in his twilight years, delivering multiple 40-goal seasons in his mid-30s. Even as his 30s gave way to his 40s, he bulged the twine with remarkable consistency. Until one year, he just didn’t. He scored 0.50 goals per game as a 39-year-old; 0.42 as a 40-year-old; then tumbled from 0.32 to 0.26 until he bottomed out at 0.14 in his final season at 43. Selanne was still one of the best goal-scorers in the game at 39, which was a remarkable accomplishment. And then the slope got extremely slippery in a hurry. That’s just aging.

So what if Ovechkin isn’t merely snakebitten with a poor shooting percentage this season? What if what we’re witnessing is the start of a sudden, real, age-related decline?

Here’s a look at his goal-relevant play-driving metrics across the past five seasons at 5-on-5:

Season	Shots/60	Change	Scoring chances/60	Change	HD chances/60	Change
2019-20	11.45	n/a	12.18	n/a	4.96	n/a
2020-21	10.52	-8.1%	9.78	-19.7%	3.91	-21.2%
2021-22	9.41	-10.6%	10.9	+11.5%	3.03	-22.5%
2022-23	10.37	+10.2%	11.3	+3.6%	4.67	+54.1%
2023-24	8.6	-17.1%	7.54	-33.0%	2.98	-36.2%

He’s shown occasional rebounds in some of the categories, but the dropoff in his all-around deadliness as goal-scoring threat this season is glaring.

It’s not quite as ugly when we combine 5-on-5 with his extensive power-play role for a more complete picture of where he stands:

Season	Shots/60	Change	Scoring chances/60	Change	HD chances/60	Change
2019-20	13.29	n/a	12.01	n/a	3.93	n/a
2020-21	12.44	-6.4%	9.85	-18.0%	3.56	-9.4%
2021-22	12.65	+1.7%	10.83	+9.9%	2.69	-24.4%
2022-23	11.96	-5.5%	11.11	+2.5%	3.82	+42.0%
2023-24	11.12	-7.0%	8.89	-20%	3.21	-16.0%

Still, the decline is apparent. There’s no way around it: Ovechkin’s scoring-chance metrics are the worst of his career, right up there with the Dale Hunter lowpoint of 2011-12. The numbers read like they belong to a different player. And Ovechkin arguably looks similarly unrecognizable on the ice, having visibly lost a step.

So the question I’m nudging us toward is: if we do accept that the age monster finally has Ovechkin in its clutches, and he’s no longer going to score like a man 10 years younger, can he still catch Gretzky in goals? And how long will he have to play to do so?

Let’s say, year over year, Ovechkin’s per-60 shot rate continues to decline at roughly 7.0 percent per season, and that his ice time continues to shrink, at it has this season, by 3.8 percent.

Here’s how his next couple seasons would look – if we gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided his shooting percentage would positively regress to his career average of 12.8% (the remainder of this season included) and that he’d play 75 games in each season, old-man nicks and bruises factored in.

Season	Games	Shots/60	TOI in mins	Shots	SH%	Goals
2023-24 (remaining)	50	11.12	972	180	12.8	23
2024-25	75	10.34	1,402	242	12.8	31
2025-26	75	9.62	1,349	216	12.8	28

The pro-rated number for this season would have Ovechkin finishing with 28 goals, factoring in his awful start. He’d get to 850 by the end of this season, then 881 by the end of 2024-25.

If he somehow ages at exactly the same rate as he has this season: he is still on track to score career goal 895 during the 2025-26 campaign, which is the last of his contract, when he’ll be 40 years old. The dream is not dead yet. But it’s far from the sure thing Mr. Hull once thought it was. It’s entirely possible, if not probable, that Ovechkin’s decline accelerates even more. Aging doesn’t occur in perfectly predictable intervals, after all. Just ask Mr. Selanne.

What does it all mean? Entering this season, 895 felt like a forgone conclusion. But the older a player gets, the more laborious the process of scoring a single goal becomes in the world’s top hockey league. Ovechkin has a chance, but it’s going to be close.

_____

Discover Betano.ca – a premium Sports Betting and Online Casino experience. Offering numerous unique and dynamic betting options along with diverse digital and live casino games, Betano is where The Game Starts Now. 19+. Please play responsibly.

Can a rapidly declining Alex Ovechkin still break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record?

Recently by Matt Larkin