How conceivable was it that someone could break Gretzky's goal record?

[Hockey Outsider]

I think the fact that he's continuing to score at such a high clip despite his age is a bigger deal than breaking the record. He's top five in goals at age 39 in a season where he suffered a fractured leg. That's ridiculous.

When Ovechkin hit 800 goals, I think it became apparent he would break the record. But to do it scoring at such a high clip so late in his career is very impressive and better than getting there with ~25 goal seasons.

Agreed. I'll also add - it's not just the fact that Ovechkin is about to beat Gretzky's total, it's the fact that nobody else is even close. Twenty years ago, if you told me that Ovechkin would be on the verge of beating Gretzky's goals record, I would have assumed that scoring skyrocketed, so there would have been a bunch of players at least in the 700+ goals range. What makes it so impressive is (believe it or not) there have only been three other players who have even reached 500 goals over the past 20 years (Crosby is a distant second, at 619). For context, over the course of Gretzky's career, 12 other players reached 500 goals.

Gretzky peaked in one of the highest scoring eras ever. Howe peaked in one of the lowest. Gretzky beat Howe's goal record by 10%. It's conceivable that in more normalized conditions Gretzky doesn't beat Howe.

Gretzky beat Howe's assists by 80%. Even in a flipped scoring environment Gretzky still gets the assist record.

I don't think it would be even close. They're probably be fairly close over their best 5-7 years, but Howe would run away with it beyond that timeframe. VsX has its limitations (which are discussed in detail in the summary thread), but as a rough ballpark, it shows Howe as having more than 300 more "adjusted" goals. (On the other hand, we're comparing 26 years of Howe to 20 years of Gretzky, so it's quite a bit closer on a per game basis).

To rack up 750+ (or whatever) NHL goals, the player needs these things (besides elite-talent, obviously):
1. Perfect-storm timing / situation (higher scoring and not leaving the NHL, say)
2. Health / Endurance
3. Ability to adapt goal scoring across different eras
4. Motivation to keep at his highest / peak level even in down years or when team sucks, etc.

I like this framework. I'd expand on it. To get 800+ goals, a player needs:

1) Talent (I'm being intentionally vague on this - some combination of speed, shot accuracy, hockey IQ, etc)
2) Health (we can debate how much of that is due to luck, genetics and motivation)
3) Long schedule length (ideally 80+ games per year)
4) Ability to have a long career (larger league with more roster spots availability - and no defection to a rival league)
5) High-scoring league - which boosts the raw numbers
6) Shooter's mentality - the willingness to prioritize shooting over passing
7) Motivation and consistency (willingness to play when not 100% healthy, keep trying when team isn't competitive, etc)

In terms of candidates:

• Richard - yes for 1, 2, 6 and 7
• Howe - yes for 1, 2, 4 (league doubled in size as he was getting older), 6 and 7
• Hull - yes for 1, 2, 6 and 7 (defecting to the WHA really hurts - had a fair chance of reaching 800 if he stayed)
• Bossy - 1, 3, 4 (the opportunity was there but health didn't allow him to take advantage), 5, 6 and 7
• Lemieux - 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
• Gretzky - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (for the first half of his career), 7
• Ovechkin - 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (I wouldn't say yes to 5 overall, but the boost the past half-decade certainly helps)

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

I think the fact that he's continuing to score at such a high clip despite his age is a bigger deal than breaking the record. He's top five in goals at age 39 in a season where he suffered a fractured leg. That's ridiculous.

When Ovechkin hit 800 goals, I think it became apparent he would break the record. But to do it scoring at such a high clip so late in his career is very impressive and better than getting there with ~25 goal seasons.

Definitely agree.

I like that it's going to be broken by someone still playing at a high level rather than someone staying way past their expiration date just to get the record (cough cough Marleau's games played record)

 

[MadLuke]

Every record will eventually be broken. That's just the reality of sports.

Not necessarily, structure of the sports can make some stay long enough until the league dissolve...

Beliveau 17 cups, Hall 502 consecutive complete game played, Roy 247 playoff games, Henderson stolen base, Cy young wins, losses, innings pitched, 2632 consecutive games from Ripken.

Some could live long enough for either the sport to end or change so much they get retired. Some of Gretzky (most mvp, art ross, etc...) could well end up some of those.

Record that if athlete training-technic get better get broken are really vulnerable, in team sports your opposition is getting better at the same time, rules get adjusted to counter your dominance if it happen and for something league/coaching changed too much

 

[MadLuke]

I think the fact that he's continuing to score at such a high clip despite his age is a bigger deal than breaking the record. He's top five in goals at age 39 in a season where he suffered a fractured leg. That's ridiculous.

Not doing it as a compiler, like it looked that how it would happen when he had 8 goals the first 43 games last year... will make it more fun and impressive. He will build some margin between the record and him, we can imagine.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Agreed. I'll also add - it's not just the fact that Ovechkin is about to beat Gretzky's total, it's the fact that nobody else is even close. Twenty years ago, if you told me that Ovechkin would be on the verge of beating Gretzky's goals record, I would have assumed that scoring skyrocketed, so there would have been a bunch of players at least in the 700+ goals range. What makes it so impressive is (believe it or not) there have only been three other players who have even reached 500 goals over the past 20 years (Crosby is a distant second, at 619). For context, over the course of Gretzky's career, 12 other players reached 500 goals.

An interesting thing we will see is how these dynamics change with the surge in young talent and higher scoring.

The only 500 goal scorers born during the 1980s are Ovechkin, Crosby, and Malkin. Kane will follow soon.

So far for those born in the 1990s we have Stamkos. Tavares will follow soon. But Matthews, McDavid, Draisaitl, Mackinnon, Kucherov, and Pastrnak will all hit it. Rantanen, Reinhart, and Scheifele all have a chance.

 

[JackSlater]

In terms of a timeline, when Gretzky broke the record and in the years that followed it seemed fairly attainable for someone else to get. Scoring was high and Lemieux looked like a decent bet to break it. By the time Gretzky retired, as asked in the OP, it seemed less likely to fall any time soon. In the late 90s scoring had dropped significantly and most of the big stars battled injury problems. Of course every record will fall if enough time passes, but it looked very unlikely for the foreseeable future.

If someone told me that a guy drafted in the early 2000s would break the record I would have been very surprised. You get quotes like Gretzky suggesting that Crosby would break all of his records, but next to no one was really thinking that way given the environment and the way things were trending. Testament to Ovechkin and some changes in hockey in the mid 2010s.

I will also say that in the early 2010s I would have given Ovechkin very low chances of breaking the record. That changed by the late 2010s or so.

 

[kaiser matias]

A question that comes up here now is when did people start to seriously discuss Ovechkin being a contender for the goal record?

 

[67 others]

I can remember conversations on this very forum where polls suggested 96% of folks thought it was never going to happen due to era.

It was deemed extremely unlikely.

But that was 15 years ago lol.

His 90+ goal season, his assists and points record and Glenn Hall's consecutive games played in goal were considered untouchable. And kinda still are.

 

[maddskkilz]

A question that comes up here now is when did people start to seriously discuss Ovechkin being a contender for the goal record?

In his age 31 season, Ovechkin scored just 33 goals and had a career total of 558 goals. I think most people reasonably expected he probably wouldn’t continue to score at a 50 goal pace anymore and would need longevity to get the record.

Even at 558 that’s still 300+ goals away. Maybe ppl thought he had an outside shot depending on how long he played but I doubt there was a lot of faith that Ovy would rack up 49, 51, and 48 goals over the next 3 seasons putting his career total at 706 following his age 34 season.

My guess is those three seasons increased his chances of breaking the record significantly in a lot of ppls eyes. Now he’s <200 goals away and had showed he was still capable of scoring goals with the best of them. Playing 6 more years at a 30-40 goal pace or longer to offset decline in goal scoring ability was within realm of reason and would have gotten him the record significantly.


Also, for all the talk of breaking the record up until Ovechkin it really seemed unbeatable. 800 goals is averaging 40 goals a year for 20 years. That’s a ridiculously high bar. Yes there is a window of peak goal scoring where players hit 50 and even 60 goals in a season but there is not a lot of room for error.

Ovechkin’s staying power as a goal scorer throughout his 30s is unbelievable.

416 goals to date in his age 30 season and beyond including 3x 50 goal seasons is amazing.

Here’s hoping he gets to a 1k!

 

[Gerulaitis]

In his age 31 season, Ovechkin scored just 33 goals and had a career total of 558 goals. I think most people reasonably expected he probably wouldn’t continue to score at a 50 goal pace anymore and would need longevity to get the record.

Even at 558 that’s still 300+ goals away. Maybe ppl thought he had an outside shot depending on how long he played but I doubt there was a lot of faith that Ovy would rack up 49, 51, and 48 goals over the next 3 seasons putting his career total at 706 following his age 34 season.

My guess is those three seasons increased his chances of breaking the record significantly in a lot of ppls eyes. Now he’s <200 goals away and had showed he was still capable of scoring goals with the best of them. Playing 6 more years at a 30-40 goal pace or longer to offset decline in goal scoring ability was within realm of reason and would have gotten him the record significantly.


Also, for all the talk of breaking the record up until Ovechkin it really seemed unbeatable. 800 goals is averaging 40 goals a year for 20 years. That’s a ridiculously high bar. Yes there is a window of peak goal scoring where players hit 50 and even 60 goals in a season but there is not a lot of room for error.

Ovechkin’s staying power as a goal scorer throughout his 30s is unbelievable.

416 goals to date in his age 30 season and beyond including 3x 50 goal seasons is amazing.

Here’s hoping he gets to a 1k!

He's going to be top 5 on the all-time list. Because goals matter the most.

 

[maddskkilz]

His all time ranking is hard to place. Hes phenomenal at scoring goals. A la Mariano Rivera of the Yankees - you know what he’s going to do, prepare for it and he does it anyways - inevitable. Scoring goals is the most important thing in hockey but if player A gets 50 goals and 20 apples and player B gets 35 goals and 100 apples then player A has directly scored more goals but player B has contributed to more total offense. How many more assists offset the difference in goals? What about two play? Is player A scoring a goal and allowing a goal every other game? How much are they contributing on the defensive side of the puck?

Ovechkin in his prime was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Shooting, deking, skating, hitting all in one package. Probably the closet comparison would be early Lindros.

But overall ranking looking over his entire body of work I can see a case for being top ten given all his accolades but exact placement is tough.

I would probably have McDavid at 5 and could see a case for Bourque, Beliveau, Bobby Hull, Patrick Roy, Hasek, Crosby, and Lidstrom all being in the same range as Ovechkin.

 

[MadLuke]

I will sound stupid, but outscoring the opposition is what matter the most.

Orr and Hasek > Luc Robitaille despite not scoring as many goals.

The goalscorer is just the most obvious and easier to evaluate way of doing it.

I do not think Ovechkin > Bourque, Hasek, McDavid will be that automatic because goals matter the most.

 

[Primary Assist]

I still remember having this discussion at summer camp in 2004 (insert American Pie reference here) with the hockey counselors.

The consensus was that Lemieux would have broken Gretzky's goal record with better health. So even 20 years ago this record was not considered unassailable

 

[maddskkilz]

I still remember having this discussion at summer camp in 2004 (insert American Pie reference here) with the hockey counselors.

The consensus was that Lemieux would have broken Gretzky's goal record with better health. So even 20 years ago this record was not considered unassailable

Yes. Lemieux could have broken the goal record with better health but that condition highlights how difficult it is to beat the all time goals record. Mario is considered one of if not the best goal scorer ever and retired 300 goals short. In his absolute prime he averaged 75 goals over 82 games. He would have needed almost 4 more full seasons to equal the record. Lest we forget Mario still played 915 games and we cannot assume adding another 400 games and 300 goals is linear. With better health there may have been a downtick in efficiency and output.

I love Mario and I’m not saying he couldn’t have challenged / beat the record with better health but that’s part of why the record was so revered. 894 goals.

Howe played 1767 games to get to 801.
Jagr played 1733 to get to 766 goals.

Longevity is crucial in setting the all time goal record.

 

[blundluntman]

I didn't really entertain the idea until Jagr returned tbh). Around 2019/20 I started to really consider Ovi breaking it but figured he'd fall short or cross the finish line in a wheelchair so to say.

While it's true Mario probably would've eclipsed the record if not for injuries, it also makes you wonder how much higher the record would've been if Gretzky didn't suffer the Suter injury. I can imagine he would've been around 1000 or so.

 

[GlitchMarner]

I still remember having this discussion at summer camp in 2004 (insert American Pie reference here) with the hockey counselors.

The consensus was that Lemieux would have broken Gretzky's goal record with better health. So even 20 years ago this record was not considered unassailable

But that's Lemieux. How many players that talented have there been?

And didn't the fact that he came up significantly short speak to how hard it is to score almost 900 goals?

I'm sure many who know their hockey don't consider Gretzky the best or greatest goal scorer ever. He was an excellent one (and transcendent at everything else offensively) who benefitted from a high-scoring League in his prime and had to play 20 years to get to 894 goals.

I'm sure people thought that in theory a player talented enough could do it if scoring increased substantially and he had a long and healthy career, but when the best young goal scorers in the League were winning the Rocket Richard with 41 goals, 895 career goals for players starting in the 2000s seemed hard to fathom.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Its not that big a deal as its being made. Nobody ever talked about it until recently.

Nobody talked about the NHL goal record?

Big if true.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Its not that big a deal as its being made. Nobody ever talked about it until recently.

I just double checked to make sure, but it was literally front page above-fold sports news in every North American newspaper. And usually teased on the front page overall.

 

[MadLuke]

Its not that big a deal as its being made. Nobody ever talked about it until recently.

was it because was getting close to it to have something to talk about ? a testament about how great it is to break it...

 

[Midnight Judges]

Scoring environment is tremendously impactful.

I don't think anyone would have predicted breaking a record like this was possible during the 2000s/2010s/2020s if they knew what the scoring environment would be like. It certainly didn't feel realistic in the DPE or during the DPE 2.0 from 2008-2017.

You had to be a real nut to predict Ovie could do this back in 2014 (and there were maybe a couple who turned out right for all the wrong reasons lol).

I think we can be confident that Gordie Howe's overall total career goal scoring value is higher than Gretzky's and that the adjusted goal totals are more indicative than the raw totals. IMO the adjusted totals should be given more weight, and along with it Gordie Howe should be given more respect. That's not to say Gretzky wasn't an all-time great goal scorer because he was, and he has as good of a case for #2 as anyone else (although I'd probably go with Bobby Hull).

 

[Kyle McMahon]

My recollection in 1999 was that the 894 was actually considered close to unbreakable given the nature of the game at that point. Any suggestion of it being eventually broken was accompanied by the caveat of major rule changes being required that would increase overall offense (or 100 game seasons, etc). Very few people would have believed the record would fall as soon as 2025 without such conditions occurring.

What I find most fascinating about Ovechkin's path to 895 is how unlikely his chances of breaking this record appeared to be for most of his career.

The first five years of his career were absolutely great, 269 goals in the bank. That's enough to at least entertain the question, but it seemed that the lack of a "super season" (think Gretzky's 92 and 87 goal seasons) made his chances remote, even at this superb pace.

Then putting up seasons of 32-38-32 in what are normally a player's absolute peak years (age 25-27 seasons) reduced the chances of breaking this record to like 1%. At only 371 goals he was seemingly already in decline as a scorer.

Then three straight 50 goal years. Ok he's back, but we're still only at 525 after 11 seasons. Those slump seasons weren't offset strongly enough to make up for the assumed decline as he entered his 30s. Chances of breaking the record are still probably only around 5% at this point. And then a dip to 33 goals in year 12, still well over 300 to go, and he's probably not putting up 50 again, right?

Then 3 straight Rockets in his 30s...Ok now we're seeing something unique. 706 goals through 15 seasons and looking strong. This brought back serious discussion of the record falling...except the third of those seasons got cancelled, and who the hell knows when the next one is getting played and how many games it will be. A non-hockey related black swan event is going to prevent him from truly making a run at it by the looks of things. Normalcy eventually resumes, but at 730 through 16 seasons, with all those miles now on his body, cancelled games, and his team strength declining, it still looked remote.

50 and 42 in the next two years was a stunning resurgence, and incredibly the "decline" years actually made up for the "lost" years in his late 20s. There's now a serious chance the record falls with 822 through 18 seasons; it's suddenly at least a 50/50 bet!

And then the mother of all slumps! Pacing for a 15-goal season halfway through 2023-24...he looks cooked. Is he going to Dave Andreychuk it for four more years to cross the finish line? I'm *still* thinking Gretzky is probably going to hang onto the record by the skin of his teeth...this was only 15 months ago!

The last season and a half might be the craziest feat of all. Who on earth suddenly turns it right back up to prime-level goal output at age 39?! Only one guy, and that's why he's going to set the record.

In my mind, it really wasn't until the start of this very season that we could confidently say the record was going to fall, barring significant injury. I always said that Ovechkin seemed like a near-lock for 800 years before he reached that plateau, but the last 95 were going to be incredibly tough to achieve...but here we are, just 5 to go, and he's going to surge through the finish line to boot! Transcendent achievement for sure.

The next 25 years will tell us whether the general belief of Gretzky's 894 being "almost unbreakable" upon his retirement was a true pronouncement, or if too much recency bias (early years of the DPE) had us too convinced that the NHL was never going to see a scoring environment conducive to breaking offensive records again. If three other guys pass him by 2050, probably the latter. If he's still #2 though, I'd say we were correct in our general belief, and Ovechkin was simply great enough to be the one guy that defied any reasonable expectations.

 

[JackSlater]

Scoring environment is tremendously impactful.

I don't think anyone would have predicted breaking a record like this was possible during the 2000s/2010s/2020s if they knew what the scoring environment would be like. It certainly didn't feel realistic in the DPE or during the DPE 2.0 from 2008-2017.

You had to be a real nut to predict Ovie could do this back in 2014 (and there were maybe a couple who turned out right for all the wrong reasons lol).

I think we can be confident that Gordie Howe's overall total career goal scoring value is higher than Gretzky's and that the adjusted goal totals are more indicative than the raw totals. IMO the adjusted totals should be given more weight, and along with it Gordie Howe should be given more respect. That's not to say Gretzky wasn't an all-time great goal scorer because he was, and he has as good of a case for #2 as anyone else (although I'd probably go with Bobby Hull).

I understand this and it's likely true, I just don't think that most people are interested in making the mental adjustments. Adjusted stats are not perfect but they at least reflect changes in the scoring environment. I would hope that people are cognizant of changes in league scoring if they are interested in having a discussion regarding hockey history, and if they aren't then I am not going to entertain the discussion. To be fair another issue is when people are slavishly devoted to a metric without being aware of its limitations, specifically recognizing that small differences are not definitive proof of anything.

I agree that Howe's goals scoring (among other things) is misunderstood and underrated. People mostly just think about Howe as scoring a ton by hanging around forever.

 

[maddskkilz]

I think it’s a little early to say that Gretzky could ever be passed by anyone else.

Matthews is at 397 now and needs ~500 goals to equal / beat Gretzky from his age 28 season onward.

Lets project it forward and see where we land.

Giving him 2x 50 goals and 2x more 40 goal seasons would get him to about 580 goals by age 32.

He still is 300 goals away at that point and would need an Ovechkin-esque back nine to get within spitting distance of the record. It’s possible but I can’t really see it. Honestly if he gets 700 goals that will be impressive and 800 might be within range but passing Gretzky will be a tall, tall order.


You can’t just have a stretch of great seasons. To score almost 900 goals you need a) EXTREMELY high-peak or b) consistency as a a high level goal scorer for a loooong time.

Brett Hull ended with 741 which included a stretch from 1988-1997 where he averaged 60 goals per 82 games and then potted 214 goals through remainder of his career. Just tying to underline the all time goals record or even besting Gretzky is no small feat.

 

[The Panther]

In discussing Gretzky's goal scoring, we keep seeing "894 goals in 20 years". That's correct of course in career terms, but it was also 718 goals in 12 seasons (before he was 'Sutered'). That's 60 goals per season for 12 years in a row, disregarding minor injuries, games missed, etc. (or it would be a bit higher) --- surely one of the most staggering goal scoring stats in NHL history... or is it?

1979-80 to 1990-91 (12 seasons):
718 - Gretzky
498 - Gartner
487 - Goulet
474 - Kurri (10 seasons only)
451 - Bossy (8 seasons only)
2nd place is 69% of Gretzky's total.

1981-82 to 1988-89 (8 seasons):
531 - Gretzky
409 - Kurri
386 - Goulet
353 - Hawerchuk
332 - Bossy (6 seasons only)
2nd place is 77% of Gretzky's total, but since that's Kurri (75% of goals set up by Gretzky), shouldn't we really count Goulet, for whom he's 73% of Gretzky's total?

1981-82 to 1986-87 (6 seasons):
437 - Gretzky
332 - Bossy
322 - Kurri
312 - Goulet
271 - Anderson
2nd place is 76% of Gretzky's total.

1981-82 to 1984-85 (4 seasons):
323 - Gretzky
233 - Bossy
210 - Goulet
200 - Kurri
192 - Vaive
2nd place is is 72% of Gretzky's total.

Beyond 12-season periods, Gretzky starts to get handily surpassed by the usual suspects (Howe and Richard maybe, certainly Ovechkin, probably Lemieux in per game), but does anyone in history match Gretzky's goals-domination for any comparable 12-year period...? Let me see... The following are players for whom the 2nd-best guy over a 12-year period was less than 80% of his total:

Maurice Richard 1943-44 to 1954-55
2nd place is 65% of total (Howe, in 2nd, played 136 fewer games than Rocket, but it is what it is...)

Esposito 1967-68 to 1978-79
2nd place is 65% of total

Ovechkin (a) 2005-06 to 2016-17
2nd place is 68% of total (Crosby, in 2nd, played 139 fewer games than Ovi, but it is what it is...)

Gretzky 1979-80 to 1990-91
2nd place is 69% of total

Ovechkin (b) 2007-08 to 2018-19
2nd place is 70% of total

Bobby Hull 1959-60 to 1970-71
2nd place is 72% of total

Gordie Howe 1950-51 to 1962-62
2nd place is 76% of total

Ovechkin (c) 2013-14 to 2024-25 (season not quite over)
2nd place is 77% of total

Brett Hull 1989-90 to 2000-01
2nd place is 78% of total

I can't think of anyone else's 12-season period that would rank with these guys' top lists, at least from WWII onward. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

The most amazing thing here, of course, is that I've listed three Ovechkin 12-year periods, and the two extreme-end ones overlap by only four seasons!

So, despite my thesis off the top, this shows that at least three 12-season periods in history slightly beat Gretzky's 12-season goals dominance over peers. (Rocket Richard was kind of lucky that Howe came on later, while Ovechkin's best number here benefits from Crosby's missed games... but I guess context is irrelevant in a purely statistical comparison.) The Esposito one is really impressive and is almost easy to overlook... but he was still scoring a lot of goals in the late-70s.

 

[MadLuke]

Top 20 biggest 12 years separation

194243	195354	Maurice Richard	384	Ted Lindsay	245	56.73
194344	195455	Maurice Richard	417	Gordie Howe	271	53.87
196768	197879	Phil Esposito	602	Jean Ratelle	394	52.79
200607	201718	Alex Ovechkin	555	Sidney Crosby	372	49.19
196869	197980	Phil Esposito	601	Guy Lafleur	405	48.4
196465	197576	Phil Esposito	559	Bobby Hull	379	47.49
196667	197778	Phil Esposito	581	Yvan Cournoyer	397	46.35
200506	201617	Alex Ovechkin	558	Sidney Crosby	382	46.07
196566	197677	Phil Esposito	570	Yvan Cournoyer	391	45.78
197980	199091	Wayne Gretzky	718	Mike Gartner	498	44.18
200708	201819	Alex Ovechkin	560	Steven Stamkos	393	42.49
198081	199192	Wayne Gretzky	698	Mike Gartner	502	39.04
195960	197071	Bobby Hull	523	Frank Mahovlich	378	38.36
194445	195556	Maurice Richard	423	Gordie Howe	309	36.89
201213	202324	Alex Ovechkin	514	Steven Stamkos	376	36.7
196061	197172	Bobby Hull	534	Frank Mahovlich	403	32.51
195051	196162	Gordie Howe	432	Bernie Geoffrion	327	32.11
198182	199293	Wayne Gretzky	659	Mike Gartner	499	32.06
195859	196970	Bobby Hull	497	Gordie Howe	377	31.83
201112	202223	Alex Ovechkin	521	Steven Stamkos	396	31.57