Ovechkin milestone thread - 850 and Beyond!

[Hanji]

With no Dave Semenko as his partner, no two-line offside, better skates and sticks, the no-touch rules, goalies going down as soon as the offensive player enters their zone, and the 3-on-3 OT? He is scoring MORE than 200.

Today's NHL is all about "systems." A mind like Gretzky would expose them day in, day out. He would TORCH this league.

Not even close.

Gretzky is the best ever, but the run and gun 1980s suited his style of play perfectly. It was the perfect storm.

If Gretz played today he'd be winning league scoring titles by a considerable margin; but not to the extent he did back in the day where he had more assists than the next highest player had points.
No way.

 

[Frosty415]

Gretz padded his stats in high scoring 80's... then his numbers went down drastically in 90's.

That's harsh truth most people here won't like

OV has more goals than Gretzky ever had past the age of 30+

Most of his haters avoid this.

great scorer, but a borderline Pejorative Slur off the rink, he's lucky he started in 05 and not 1990s where he would have been easy target from the resident tough guys or huge hitters like kaspar, stevens, sutter even pronger owned him every time they played.

hockey today is almost figure skating !

New to hockey? OV has always been physical.

 

[Plante]

Those Oilers teams were massively stacked to. Not a snowballs chance in hell you'd be able to assemble all that talent on a single team and fit it under the cap.

Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffee & Glen Anderson were really the only other recipes for success on that team. I really don't think they need Fuhr to win.

That's not really a crazy combo that would be out of cap reach imo

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

No they weren't. They were an EXPANSION team, starting from scratch, full of young, reasonably paid players. As soon as Oilers stars became too expensive, Pocklington traded them. We are not talking DPE Detroit or NYR here.

How do you assemble a cap compliant roster with prime Gretzky, Coffey, Messier, Kurri and Anderson? The Oilers were stacked, that’s how they won 4 Cups in 5 years.

Gretzky alone would command max salary, which is $16.5M under the current CBA.

 

[BallardEra]

Was reading that when Gretzky scored #800 the next closest player was 183 goals back.

That was Mike Gartner with 617 goals at the time.

 

[Frosty415]

Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffee & Glen Anderson were really the only other recipes for success on that team. I really don't think they need Fuhr to win.

That's not really a crazy combo that would be out of cap reach imo

they're all hall of famers lol.

that's a stacked team, even on paper

 

[bobbyking]

he has the 5th most hits since 2005 lmao

 

[pezpunk]

Of course modern Ovechkin would dominate 90s NHL. This is like saying the modern American military would dominate Alexander the Great.

It’s an absurd, obvious observation.

What’s equally absurd is the crowd who claims that athletes in Gretzky’s era wouldn’t respond just as well to modern training/diet/equipment. Mario Lemieux was a f***ing tank. Give him all the amenities of modern players and he would be posting Mcdavid numbers if not higher. Gretzky had to play in a much, MUCH more physical era. Give him the equipment and open ice of the modern NHL, and he’d probably score 200 points again.

This “adjusted for era” comparison is not the one way street people think it is.

That is NOT how “adjusted for era” stats work. All they do is take the average goals per game per season and normalize goal totals to reflect that. There are no hypotheticals or false equivalencies, or assumptions based on diet or equipment.

 

[pezpunk]

I didnt mean that 2 more cups would 100% put him in the top 5 but it would help his argument if he lead his team to a couple more Cups. without those imo there's just not enough to warrant him being top 5.

Cups are the absolute dumbest way to judge an individual player. There couldn’t possibly be a metric that tells you less. Just really rock dumb criteria. Zero respect for that argument.

 

[Video Nasty]

Wouldn’t be an Ovechkin appreciation thread without people feeling the need to pull down Gretzky in the process.

 

[Frosty415]

he has the 5th most hits since 2005 lmao

I checked and apparently he's 291 from being first since 05.

I tried finding the all time hit leaders and the only sources I could find only keep track from 05+

 

[Hockeyholic]

Greatest goal scorer in NHL history.

One of the best shots too

 

[Frosty415]

Is Washington trying to contend for a cup this season?

I think the Ovechkin story is great.

I just wonder if they are selling history, not a chance at a cup, to their fans.

lmao what a terrible post.

OV scores a hat trick and wins it for his team, in fact they've won a lot of games recently due to his production.

trash narrative.

** Nice edit

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Goal scoring is the most important thing in hockey, and he will be the GOAT at it.

 

[pezpunk]

Is Washington trying to contend for a cup this season?

I think the Ovechkin story is great.

I just wonder if they are selling history, not a chance at a cup, to their fans.

The fans aren’t dumb, we can see this is a very flawed team hamstrung by some big contracts such as Carlson and Backstrom. We know the cup window’s probably closed, but it’s not time to tank or blow it all up yet. All any of us want - from fans to ownership — is for Ovie to break the record. Who the hell wouldn’t?

 

[Frosty415]

The fans aren’t dumb, we can see this is a very flawed team hamstrung by some big contracts such as Carlson and Backstrom. We know the cup window’s probably closed, but it’s not time to tank or blow it all up yet. All any of us want - from fans to ownership — is for Ovie to break the record. Who the hell wouldn’t?

At the same time, it's a terrible attempt to diminish OVs accomplishment. It's insane how someone can make history and score 800 but still have haters lurking trying to downplay anything.

 

[PolishPrince21]

Once Gretzky left Edmonton his goals dropped considerably, Ovi has been consistent his whole career

 

[Daximus]

Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffee & Glen Anderson were really the only other recipes for success on that team. I really don't think they need Fuhr to win.

That's not really a crazy combo that would be out of cap reach imo

In the current structure of the league Gretz, Messier and Kurri would command similar money to McDavid and Drai. Coffey would likely be among the highest paid defencemen and Anderson would probably want over $7m. Not to mention the depth and goaltending.

There's absolutely no way that roster gets created, especially in a market like Edmonton.

 

[Daximus]

Was reading that when Gretzky scored #800 the next closest player was 183 goals back.

That was Mike Gartner with 617 goals at the time.

The next current player to Ovi is Sid who is 266 goals back.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Was reading that when Gretzky scored #800 the next closest player was 183 goals back.

That was Mike Gartner with 617 goals at the time.

When Ovechkin got his 800th goal there were three players within 350 goals of him - Crosby, Stamkos, and Malkin.

When Gretzky got his 800th goal, there were 11 players with 350 goals of him - Gartner, Kurri, Goulet, Ciccarelli, Lemieux, Hawerchuk, Messier, Anderson, Mullen, Yzerman, and Bossy.

 

[YippieKaey]

Of course modern Ovechkin would dominate 90s NHL. This is like saying the modern American military would dominate Alexander the Great.

It’s an absurd, obvious observation.

What’s equally absurd is the crowd who claims that athletes in Gretzky’s era wouldn’t respond just as well to modern training/diet/equipment. Mario Lemieux was a f***ing tank. Give him all the amenities of modern players and he would be posting Mcdavid numbers if not higher. Gretzky had to play in a much, MUCH more physical era. Give him the equipment and open ice of the modern NHL, and he’d probably score 200 points again.

This “adjusted for era” comparison is not the one way street people think it is.

Ummm yeah.... he already did that. Scores waaaayyyyy more than McDavid.

 

[Mulletman]

Anybody else feel like the hockey gods really love Ovechkin? Because it looks like they're constantly lining up those milestones for Ovechkin to reach this season.
1 more goal to tie Gordie Howe, 2 to surpass him in goals.
1 more assist to tie Bobby Orr, 2 to surpass him in assists.
14 more shots to tie the all time shots record, should take Ovechkin another 3 or 4 games max.
4 more goals and Ovechkin will break Marcel Dionne record of 17 seasons with at least 24 goals scored
Also pretty soon closing in on 300 powrplay goals as Ovechkin needs another 8. Should happen this season.
And 4 more empty net goals to break Gretzky's all time empty net record. Hope it happens this season.
Also 14 more points to become the all time highest point scoring player wearing number 8
And 24 more points to overtake the number 2 spots amongst european players in points.

 

[MLSE]

Props to Ovi. Incredible goal scorer. One of the greatest to ever do it.

I don't want to take anything away from him, he deserves all the recognition.

One small thing though, let's not talk about Gretzky like there wasn't 2 versions of him. Early thirties while playing in the 90s he had major back problems. He wasn't the same player, there's no getting around that. It is what it is. So when talking about the back half of his career, acknowledge that it was going as far as being said that he may never play again before he decided to give the NHL another 7ish years.

 

[MLSE]

I remember a while back where he started slow and it was being said he was washed. YEARS go by and he's still a goal scoring machine.

It's going to be a weird day when he retires. What a player.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Cups are the absolute dumbest way to judge an individual player. There couldn’t possibly be a metric that tells you less. Just really rock dumb criteria. Zero respect for that argument.

lmao That's fine, you act as if gaining your respect means something.

leading your team to Championships is a thing is every sport but not hockey? sorry but all of the top 4 have won a cup atleast 2 times. it means more when your the leader of your team leading them to win

look at Joe Thornton never winning will be something he will always be known for and he got chirped even by Torts. along the lines might be the best player to never win anything.