Most last year with a broken foot and it didn’t slow down his stat production.
No one? Or not McDavid or Matthews? Gretzky’s record was considered unbreakable until Ovi broke it.
Ovis missed more potential games from lock outs than injuries.
Ovi played a decade when a team scoring 5 goals in a game was noteworthy.
I think he can be caught but Matthews won’t be the guy unless his ailments cease.
This is true but, Ovi also lost all of his true Rookie year to the cancelled 2004-05 season as well as half a year each to a lockout and COVID. It’s a shame too because he might very well have 1,000 goals by now I think.
There are structural reasons why players theoretically wouldn’t be able to catch Ovi, but lack of future talent isn’t one of them (the league ceasing to exist would be a good example)
If the league stays mostly the same, it’s only a matter of time. It’s insane to me to say that nobody can do what Ovi has done when Ovi has done it – proof is there, it can be done and if it can be done once it can be done again.
It’s not an arbitrary, imaginary and technically unattainable record like scoring 200 goals in an 82 game season.
Kotkaniemi will be the first to break Ovi’s record imo
And don’t forget he got fucked by two lockouts in his prime
They said that about Gretzkys record as well.
On what planet has McDavid ever been talked about as a contender to break the goals record?
Other than one outlier year, he’s been a 40 goal per season guy.
It’s very possible that McDavid becomes the second player ever to 2000 points, but he’s not getting anywhere near the goals record.
Matthews has potential. I hope he doesn’t, but if any current player is going to break it, Matthews has a half-decent chance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They always said the same thing about Gretzky and his goals record. Nobody would ever catch him in a million years…until someone did.
Of course someone will surpass Ovechkin at some point. That is just the nature of records and why they are made to be broken.
Mcdavid has zero shot at it. He’s scored more than 50 just once
Matthews is all about the longevity. And I just don’t see it personally bc he’d need 10 consecutive 50 burgers to get close pretty much
That 76 games also includes a broken leg! Unreal
Matthews doesn’t have the constitution
You essentially need to have a 20 year career and average almost 50 goals per year which seems absolutely insane. Goal scoring at that pace is extremely rare and staying healthy over that time would also be extremely rare. It’ll probably happen one day but who knows when.
Without lockouts Ovi would have hit 1000 goals easily by now. It’s not even a question whether he edges Gretzky as the greatest of all time.
I guess this is part of what makes him the mule.
Real easy to stay healthy when you dont play board to board.
I’m not sure if “no one” will catch him – but it sure as hell wont be Matthews
To be fair, when you float around, looking for goals the entire game, you don’t tend to get into situations where you could get injured. I imagine Brett Hull didn’t miss that many games either!
Average soviet machine, never breaks.
as I always said, being durable is a good thing. You might not be the best, but you’re always there and in the long run it might matter more.
Everyone said Gretzkys goal record would never be beaten and here we are. That said it will be a very very very long time before anyone beats Ovi’s record. You need to average 50 goals a season for 18 years to get 900 goals. He’s surpassed that number and is still going.
Didn’t Lidstrom miss fewer games? Something in the 50s
Mathews lmao
Does Ovi stick around to get to 1000 goals? It looks like that would take him into the 2026-27 season to pull it off, he would be approaching 43 years old.
On that topic of career milestones; Syd has 1710 career points and is still a 90+ points per season guy. He is 277 points away from 1987 career points. It would take some huge years (105 points per) to do it for the end of the 26-27 season.
But, what a moment it would be for hockey if these two guys could reach those milestones at age 42 and 40 and then retire at the end of that 26-27 season after giving fans the best era of hockey ever (and I grew up in the Bossey-Gretzky era).
Ovie also missed 116 games due to lockout.
2005 – all 82 games
2012 – season was shortened to 48 games so 34 games were lost.
Not saying that alone makes it likely but Ovie has missed out on 192 regular season games.
Ovechkin has been remarkably high performing in his later years & how a player manages to delay or adjust to age related decline will be as much of a factor as anything else.
Dude is a mutant. He fractured his leg and missed like a month last year. Insane.
They also said no one would catch Gretzky
Russian Machine Never Breaks
For those wanting to discount him, Only ~400 of his goals were power play or empty net. So while his numbers are certainly inflated by those two categories, he’s still very impressive at “regular hockey”
McDavid is on the downswing and has been for years. He’s going to settle in to 20-30 goals a year soon.
35 comments
Most last year with a broken foot and it didn’t slow down his stat production.
No one? Or not McDavid or Matthews? Gretzky’s record was considered unbreakable until Ovi broke it.
Ovis missed more potential games from lock outs than injuries.
Ovi played a decade when a team scoring 5 goals in a game was noteworthy.
I think he can be caught but Matthews won’t be the guy unless his ailments cease.
This is true but, Ovi also lost all of his true Rookie year to the cancelled 2004-05 season as well as half a year each to a lockout and COVID. It’s a shame too because he might very well have 1,000 goals by now I think.
There are structural reasons why players theoretically wouldn’t be able to catch Ovi, but lack of future talent isn’t one of them (the league ceasing to exist would be a good example)
If the league stays mostly the same, it’s only a matter of time. It’s insane to me to say that nobody can do what Ovi has done when Ovi has done it – proof is there, it can be done and if it can be done once it can be done again.
It’s not an arbitrary, imaginary and technically unattainable record like scoring 200 goals in an 82 game season.
Kotkaniemi will be the first to break Ovi’s record imo
And don’t forget he got fucked by two lockouts in his prime
They said that about Gretzkys record as well.
On what planet has McDavid ever been talked about as a contender to break the goals record?
Other than one outlier year, he’s been a 40 goal per season guy.
It’s very possible that McDavid becomes the second player ever to 2000 points, but he’s not getting anywhere near the goals record.
Matthews has potential. I hope he doesn’t, but if any current player is going to break it, Matthews has a half-decent chance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They always said the same thing about Gretzky and his goals record. Nobody would ever catch him in a million years…until someone did.
Of course someone will surpass Ovechkin at some point. That is just the nature of records and why they are made to be broken.
Mcdavid has zero shot at it. He’s scored more than 50 just once
Matthews is all about the longevity. And I just don’t see it personally bc he’d need 10 consecutive 50 burgers to get close pretty much
That 76 games also includes a broken leg! Unreal
Matthews doesn’t have the constitution
You essentially need to have a 20 year career and average almost 50 goals per year which seems absolutely insane. Goal scoring at that pace is extremely rare and staying healthy over that time would also be extremely rare. It’ll probably happen one day but who knows when.
Without lockouts Ovi would have hit 1000 goals easily by now. It’s not even a question whether he edges Gretzky as the greatest of all time.
I guess this is part of what makes him the mule.
Real easy to stay healthy when you dont play board to board.
I’m not sure if “no one” will catch him – but it sure as hell wont be Matthews
To be fair, when you float around, looking for goals the entire game, you don’t tend to get into situations where you could get injured. I imagine Brett Hull didn’t miss that many games either!
Average soviet machine, never breaks.
as I always said, being durable is a good thing. You might not be the best, but you’re always there and in the long run it might matter more.
Everyone said Gretzkys goal record would never be beaten and here we are. That said it will be a very very very long time before anyone beats Ovi’s record. You need to average 50 goals a season for 18 years to get 900 goals. He’s surpassed that number and is still going.
Didn’t Lidstrom miss fewer games? Something in the 50s
Mathews lmao
Does Ovi stick around to get to 1000 goals? It looks like that would take him into the 2026-27 season to pull it off, he would be approaching 43 years old.
On that topic of career milestones; Syd has 1710 career points and is still a 90+ points per season guy. He is 277 points away from 1987 career points. It would take some huge years (105 points per) to do it for the end of the 26-27 season.
But, what a moment it would be for hockey if these two guys could reach those milestones at age 42 and 40 and then retire at the end of that 26-27 season after giving fans the best era of hockey ever (and I grew up in the Bossey-Gretzky era).
Ovie also missed 116 games due to lockout.
2005 – all 82 games
2012 – season was shortened to 48 games so 34 games were lost.
Not saying that alone makes it likely but Ovie has missed out on 192 regular season games.
Ovechkin has been remarkably high performing in his later years & how a player manages to delay or adjust to age related decline will be as much of a factor as anything else.
Dude is a mutant. He fractured his leg and missed like a month last year. Insane.
They also said no one would catch Gretzky
Russian Machine Never Breaks
For those wanting to discount him, Only ~400 of his goals were power play or empty net. So while his numbers are certainly inflated by those two categories, he’s still very impressive at “regular hockey”
McDavid is on the downswing and has been for years. He’s going to settle in to 20-30 goals a year soon.
russian machine never break
The Russian machine