The traveling caravan is officially hitting the road with Alex Ovechkin now in reach of breaking the NHL’s all-time record for career goals.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other senior league personnel will be in attendance for Wednesday’s Washington Capitals-Carolina Hurricanes game in Raleigh, N.C., and plan to attend each of Washington’s remaining games until Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s record.

Gretzky is expected to be there, as well — just as Gordie Howe was when he passed the baton on March 23, 1994.

Ovechkin is four goals away from breaking Gretzky’s record with eight Capitals games remaining for him to get goal No. 895 before the end of this regular season. That includes three games at Capital One Center, starting with Friday’s visit by the Chicago Blackhawks, and five on the road.

For the NHL, which has spent months preparing for the culmination of the “Gr8 Chase,” this is a center-stage moment. The league has meticulously mapped out the production elements that will accompany the record-breaker and tried to plan for every contingency, right down to the possibility that the goal is subject to a video review challenge.

Among those expected to take in the Ovechkin Tour live are members of the player’s family, including his wife, Nastya, who was at TD Garden in Boston on Tuesday to see her husband score career goal No. 891, along with a healthy contingent from the Capitals and the NHL. Former teammate Nicklas Bäckström recently told reporters he’d be heading out on the road for any game where the record might fall.

“As we all know, he can score a hat trick when he wants,” Bäckström said.

When this season began, there was some skepticism about the possibility that Ovechkin, now 39, could score the 42 goals needed for history. The chances of it happening appeared considerably less likely when he suffered a fractured left fibula in November that sidelined him for 16 games.

And yet, here we are.

“What he’s done is remarkable,” Gretzky said in December. “Listen, it’s good for the sport, it’s great for the game, and hopefully I’m there to shake his hand the night he breaks the record.”

Just nine players in NHL history have topped the league in career goals since 1917.

The three who held that mantle across the past 73 years are each considered historic legends of the sport. The all-time goals record was claimed by Maurice Richard in 1952 and then passed on to Howe in 1963 and Gretzky in 1994.

On Tuesday, the NHL announced that ESPN and TNT would each produce an OviCast for all of their remaining Capitals broadcasts. That will feature an isolated camera on Ovechkin alongside the traditional game feed.

In total, there are expected to be an additional 10 cameras in each building as he chases down the record.

The NHL’s plans include allowing the Capitals players to clear the bench and celebrate with Ovechkin on the ice when he ties the record. When he breaks it, the game will be delayed for a formal celebration and ceremony. That will happen regardless of how much time is remaining on the clock or how important the game might be to the Capitals’ opponent because of the historical significance of this achievement, according to league sources.

If Ovechkin were to break the record during one of his two upcoming games at the New York Islanders’ UBS Arena, for example, it could cause an interruption to a game with direct playoff implications. The Islanders have stumbled of late in the chase for an Eastern Conference wild-card spot but remain mathematically alive.

While there’s no indication that the Capitals are going to try to time exactly where and when Ovechkin breaks the record, the NHL has asked for a heads-up if the team decides not to dress him for a game down the stretch because of all of the extra elements involved with preparing for the moment.

There is a historical precedent for that kind of move.

Hank Aaron was playing for the Atlanta Braves when he tied baseball’s all-time home run record in Cincinnati on the opening day of the 1974 season, and he sat out the following game at Riverfront Stadium before eventually hitting the record-setting homer after the Braves returned home for a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

When Gretzky was chasing down Howe’s record in March 1994, with the man dubbed “Mr. Hockey” and Gretzky’s parents, Walter and Phyllis, among those following along, he didn’t draw out the drama.

Gretzky scored twice in San Jose on March 20 to pull even with Howe before getting the record-setter in the Los Angeles Kings’ next game at the Great Western Forum against the Vancouver Canucks on March 23. He had a wide-open net to shoot at behind Canucks goalie Kirk McLean after taking a cross-ice pass from Marty McSorley on the rush.

On this day 27 years ago, Wayne Gretzky broke the all-time record for goals scored with 802.

If that seems like a lot, it’s because it is. @GEICO | #GEICORewind pic.twitter.com/RonQcSsmHW

— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 23, 2021

The in-game, on-ice ceremony to commemorate the achievement included Bettman and lasted about 15 minutes.

While Gretzky predicted earlier this season that it’ll be tough for Ovechkin to keep his emotions in check as the focus on the record intensifies — “He’s human, he’ll get a little bit nervous near the end,” Gretzky said in December — there’s a growing sense of inevitability about the pursuit with Ovechkin not having gone more than three games between goals during the entire 2024-25 campaign.

“I think he’ll get it this year,” former Capitals coach Barry Trotz told The Athletic recently. “He’s one of those guys that when he locks onto something, he’ll get ‘er done. He’s going to probably have 100 shots from now until the end of the season.

“He’s going to shoot the puck a lot.”

With a lot of eyes watching, too.

(Top photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)