BREAKING: Alexander Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky's goal record

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Liam McCormick
February 10, 2024 (6:43 PM)

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Today against the Boston Bruins, Alexander Ovechkin scored his fourth goal in four games as an empty-net goal, and officially passed Wayne Gretzky to hold the all-time record for most empty net goals scored. It was Ovechkin's 57th career empty net goal, now just one more than Gretzky's 56.

Now 38 years old and really beginning to show signs of struggle this year, fans are beginning to question whether Ovechkin will have the longevity to break Gretzky's all time career goals record. Gretzky sits with 894 career goals, and after today Ovechkin has 834. In 47 games this season, Ovechkin has only scored 12 goals, and is on pace to score the least amount of goals in a season in his career.

After this year, Ovechkin still has two more years left on his contract for $9.5M, and it seems likely that he'll play until his contract is complete. He's spoken publicly about wanting to break the goal record heading into this season, but his production has finally slowed at 38 years old.

If Ovechkin continues at this pace and finishes this year with 21 goals, and then repeated that same pace for the next two seasons, he would end up with a total of 885 goals. Right now, if Ovechkin wants a shot at the record, he'll need to turn on the jets and begin scoring as much as he can before he slows down much more.