ELMONT, N.Y. — The floor was wet.
Beyond that, inside the visitors’ locker room at UBS Arena, there weren’t many obvious signs of what took place Sunday, what Alex Ovechkin accomplished. It felt crowded, sure, and a few more former All-Stars were milling around than you’d typically see after a game in early April. Still, a person dropped in the middle of the scene would’ve noticed hockey players speaking into microphones and not much else.
Tom Wilson was one of those players. And the Washington Capitals winger, standing in a puddle of sweat and Stella Artois, had to clear his throat to maintain his composure.
“It’s just an honor to be living through this,” he said.
Wilson was speaking about the exploits of Ovechkin, whose two-decade chase of the NHL career record for goals had come to an end 2 hours and 21 minutes earlier. He scored No. 895 as he’d scored so many before: on a remarkable, bull-whip shot through an impossibly small window with his team on the power play.
“This is the true greatness of Alex Ovechkin,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “I saw, there was nothing. I couldn’t even see (Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin), let alone netting.
“It’s the ultimate goal-scorer’s goal for the greatest of all time.”
This is the story of how Alex Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 career goals.
GO FURTHER
Why Alex Ovechkin’s ‘amazing journey’ to goal No. 895 meant so much to so many