Mammoth fans saw Connor McDavid hit multiple milestones on Tuesday. They’ll be relieved to know Alex Ovechkin hit his big number earlier this week.
In the entire 109-year history of the NHL, nobody has scored more regular-season goals than Alex Ovechkin. And he’ll be in Utah on Thursday.
Although it hasn’t been officially announced, there has been much speculation that this could be Ovechkin’s final NHL season. He has stated in the past that before he retires, he’d like to go back to Russia and finish his career with Moscow Dynamo of the KHL, where his career began.
He turns 41 in September, making him the third-oldest active player in the league. His 27 goals and 53 points through 72 games this season are low by his standards, but most guys would kill for a stat line like that in their prime, let alone with a full head of gray hair.
That said, he’s done it while playing as little defense as possible. Since they began tracking this metric, no NHL player has ever gone a full season without starting a shift in the defensive zone. Ovechkin is 10 games away from becoming the first.
Ovechkin is famous for his one-timers from the left face-off circle, particularly on the power play. Utah Mammoth fans have become accustomed to seeing those goals from Dylan Guenther, but Ovechkin has been scoring those goals in the NHL since Guenther was first learning to walk.
Over the last 21 years, Ovechkin has inspired countless kids to play hockey. One of them is Mammoth star Logan Cooley. Even though Cooley grew up in Sidney Crosby’s territory of Pittsburgh, he was an “Ovi” fan.
“In warmups, I’ll look over, and it’ll be pretty cool,” Cooley told KSL ahead of last year’s home game against the Washington Capitals. “But as the game starts, you want to limit his chances and not see him score now.”
The Capitals’ last visit to the Delta Center, on Nov. 18, 2024, began great for the superstar. He scored two goals, including the eventual game-winner. But then, misfortune struck.
In the third period, Ovechkin collided awkwardly in the neutral zone with Utah’s Jack McBain, resulting in a fractured fibula.
Ovechkin’s entire objective for that season was to break Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record, and the injury set him back a ways.
But he returned a month and 10 days later and picked up right where he left off, breaking the record with four games to spare.
The latest of many milestones in Ovechkin’s career is his 1,000th NHL goal, regular season and playoffs combined, which he hit against the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.
After watching Connor McDavid score both his 400th goal and his 1,200th point on Tuesday, the Mammoth probably don’t mind that Ovechkin’s big moment came two games before his visit to Salt Lake City.
The Mammoth held Ovechkin off the score sheet completely in their visit to Washington, D.C., earlier this month as they held on for a 3-2 victory.
Source: Utah News