Milestone Watch: Five NHLers tracking to hit big marks to finish 2024-25

Steven Ellis
Steven Ellis(sellishockey)
Mar 26, 2025, 10:00 EDT
Milestone Watch: Five NHLers tracking to hit big marks to finish 2024-25
Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

We’re in the stretch run for the NHL regular season, with every team having hit the 70-game mark by last night.

That means, at most, we’re looking at 12 games to go for many of the league’s top teams. We have just over three weeks to go until the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So for just about everything, this is the time to leave everything on the line. For a few players, in particular, there’s a chance to join some elite company.

These four NHLers have enough time to hit a major milestone before the regular season comes to a close in April – giving an extra layer of intrigue as time ticks down:

Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals: 895 goals

Amount Needed: 6

This is what everyone’s keeping an eye on. This isn’t just any record – it’s the all-time goal-scoring record. Ovi has another 11 games left to go, and when he’s hot, he’s hot. The one thing playing against him – he hasn’t scored multiple goals in a game since Feb. 23 (a hat-trick against Edmonton), and hasn’t scored in multiple games since Feb. 23/25.

He’s still shooting a lot, so that part isn’t an issue. But maybe the pressure and all the talk of him getting even closer to the record is playing a bit of a toll on the 39-year-old. There’s no way he’s not going to break the record, but the chase to beat The Great One before the season ends would relieve a lot of the pressure heading into the postseason. At this point, though, it’s futile to bet against Ovechkin. He has continuously found ways to prove people wrong with his scoring ability. Now that a playoff spot is locked up, the Caps will do whatever it takes to help Ovechkin make history.

Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins: 600 assists

Amount Needed: 4

The old guys still have it in Pittsburgh. With Sidney Crosby at the top of the league in 5-on-5 production and Evgeni Malkin closing in on yet another 50-point season, Letang isn’t getting as much love. Sure, he isn’t a 50-point defender anymore, but he’s also 37, suffered multiple strokes, and is dealing with natural body wear after playing 25+ minutes a night throughout most of his career.

Letang needs just four assists to hit 600, although at his current pace, he might get to that without some luck. He’s still playing some decent hockey, but the offense isn’t coming like it used to. Only three active NHL defenders have 600 assists – including teammate Erik Karlsson, as well as Victor Hedman and Brent Burns. Letang was never as offensively dominant as the other three, but he’s always been a great skater – and he’ll take the three Stanley Cups over anything else. Letang still has another three years left on his contract, so he’ll easily crush past 600 – but just how far can he take it?

Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins: 20 seasons with at least a point per game

Amount Needed: 1

After missing two games earlier in the season, Crosby can only play 80 games this year. With 79 on the board with nine games to go, Crosby needs just one to post his 20th consecutive point-per-game season, which would break the record previously owned by Wayne Gretzky.

Crosby has been a model of consistency since Day 1 in 2005-06, and while it’s been a while since he put up triple-digit points – 2018-19, to be exact – he established long ago why he’s one of the greatest to ever do it. At 37, he’s tracking toward his 14th 80-plus point season. Injuries have limited his overall game output, but with 1,675 points in 1,343 games, he has clearly made the most of it.

Ryan McDonagh, Tampa Bay Lightning: 1,000 games played

Amount Needed: 1

Thursday’s the night. The 35-year-old might not be the defenseman he once was, but he’s on track to play 82 games in a season for the first time since putting up a career-best 46 points in 2018-19. He’s a leader in the room, someone teammates seem to love. McDonagh is still willing to put himself on the line every single night, which is admirable. He’s more of a shutdown defender at this point, but putting up around 25 points as a 35-year-old isn’t nothing.

The St. Paul, Minnesota native has over 400 points in his career, and has averaged 22:37 a night as a minute-muncher. His ice time has dipped to 20:35 in his first season back with the Bolts after two years away, but he’s still having a solid defensive impact. And while plus-minus is a flawed stat, his +35 is the best of his career since that 2018-19 season when he had 38. We’ll see how good he is come playoff time – something that has typically gone well for him.

Sergei Bobrovsky, Florida Panthers: 50 shutouts

Amount Needed: 1

Bobrovsky is no stranger to shutting teams down. With his fifth donut of the season last Thursday – his third in a 10-game span – Bobrovsky hit the mark for the sixth time in his NHL career. Only two active goaltenders – Marc-Andre Fleury (76) and Jonathan Quick (63) have more. No goalie will likely ever come close to touching Martin Brodeur’s record of 125. Getting 50 in the modern-day NHL is no easy feat, however. For reference, Andrei Vasilevskiy is the next on the list to hit 50, and he’s only at 39.

Bobrovsky is playing some great hockey right now, having allowed more than three goals in a game just four times since Jan. 1. Three of those four-goal games came during a three-game stretch. Since then, he’s been dialed in as the Panthers look to secure the top spot in the Atlantic, with Boborvosky playing some of his best hockey against playoff-bound clubs. He rarely faces 30 shots in a game, which is a testament to Florida’s strong play. But if the Panthers go deep for the third straight year, Bobrovsky will deserve a ton of the praise.

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