Alex Ovechkin Announced His Final Season. Eleven Goals Stand Between Him and Gretzky's Last Record.

Alex Ovechkin told you before the first home game of the season, the way he wanted to. "My family and I decided this summer that this will be my final year in the NHL," he said in a statement before the Capitals took the ice at Capital One Arena. No countdown clock. No mid-season speculation. Just a 41-year-old man with 929 goals and one sweater telling a city and a sport that this is the last year.

Ovechkin holds the NHL's all-time regular-season goals record after passing Wayne Gretzky's mark of 894 on April 6, 2025, according to NHL.com. He won the Hart Trophy as league MVP three times. He won the Rocket Richard Trophy as the league's top goal scorer a record nine times. He won the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP when the Capitals beat the Vegas Golden Knights in five games to claim Washington's first Stanley Cup in 44 years of existence, according to NHL.com's coverage of the 2018 Final. He did all of it in one city, for one team, across 22 seasons.

What Do 929 Goals in the Modern NHL Actually Mean?

Gretzky scored his 894 regular-season goals during hockey's highest-scoring era, when teams routinely put up four or five goals per game. The defensive systems were looser, the goaltending equipment was smaller, and the coaching philosophy was simpler. Ovechkin broke that record during the dead puck era and the analytics-driven game that followed it, when every team employed video coaches, defensive structures tightened, and goaltenders wore equipment that turned them into small buildings.

He scored anyway. At 40 years old, during the 2025-26 season, he played all 82 regular-season games and put up 32 goals and 32 assists, according to CBS Sports' season stats. Only Gordie Howe (44 goals) and Johnny Bucyk (36 goals) have scored more at that age in NHL history, per Russian Machine Never Breaks' season review. He was the fifth player in league history to play all 82 games at age 40 or older.

The nine Rocket Richard Trophies tell the consistency story better than any single number. Ovechkin led the league in goals nine times across 20 seasons, according to NHL.com's official records. No other player has done it more than seven. In his worst full seasons, he still scored in the mid-20s. In 2007-08, he won the Hart, the Rocket Richard, the Art Ross, and the Ted Lindsay in the same season, a sweep that only he and Connor McDavid have ever accomplished.

His career stat line reads 929 goals and 759 assists for 1,688 points in 1,575 games, per Hockey Reference. He is the all-time leader in power-play goals (331), game-winning goals (141), overtime goals (27), and road goals (476). He holds the record for most 40-goal seasons (14) and most 30-goal seasons (20) in league history.

Can Ovechkin Pass Gretzky's Last Remaining Record?

There is one more number to chase. Ovechkin currently has 1,006 combined goals across regular season and playoffs (929 and 77, respectively), according to ESPN. Gretzky's combined total is 1,016 (894 regular season and 122 playoffs). Ovechkin needs 11 to pass him.

He scored 32 regular-season goals last year at age 40. If he maintains anything close to that pace, the combined record falls well before spring. He and Gretzky are the only players in NHL history to reach 1,000 combined goals, a milestone Ovechkin hit on March 22, 2026, according to ESPN's reporting.

The Capitals are unlikely to be serious Stanley Cup contenders this season, which means the combined goals chase will carry much of the franchise's narrative weight through the winter. Every road game becomes a farewell event. Every home game at Capital One Arena carries the weight of finality. The two players never competed against each other on the ice, but their names sit next to each other in every statistical category that matters. This season determines whether Ovechkin finishes his career having surpassed Gretzky in every meaningful goal-scoring measure.

What Does It Mean to Play 22 Years for One Team?

Ovechkin was drafted first overall on June 26, 2004, according to NHL draft records. He arrived as a teenager from Moscow. The 2004-05 season was cancelled by the lockout, so he debuted in 2005-06 and scored 52 goals as a rookie. Twenty-one years later, he has never worn another NHL sweater.

That kind of loyalty is rare enough in professional sports to be worth naming on its own. Derek Jeter did it with the Yankees across 20 seasons. Tim Duncan did it with the Spurs across 19. Kobe Bryant did it with the Lakers across 20. Ovechkin's 22 years with the Capitals puts him in a group that most athletes never approach, and he did it in a market that doesn't always get the national attention that New York, San Antonio, and Los Angeles command.

He also did it in a sport that doesn't command mainstream coverage in the United States the way basketball, football, and baseball do. Hockey sits in a strange place in American sports media. It's popular enough to fill arenas and generate billions in revenue, but it consistently gets less airtime, fewer columns, and smaller headlines than the other three major leagues. Ovechkin's career existed partly outside that attention cycle, which is one reason his accomplishments sometimes get framed as surprising rather than inevitable. Anyone who watched him play regularly knew exactly what was coming.

Who Fills the Void When Ovechkin Leaves?

The ceremonial parts of a farewell tour are predictable. The standing ovations in visiting arenas. The pre-game tributes. The highlight packages. Every franchise does this for its greatest players. What's less predictable is what happens to the Capitals' identity after Ovechkin walks away. He has been the franchise's gravitational center since 2005. No player in the organization's history comes close to his significance. No current player on the roster is positioned to replace what he meant to Washington as both an athlete and a cultural figure.

The Capitals will retire No. 8. The Hockey Hall of Fame induction will follow on schedule. Those are formalities. The harder question is whether Washington remains relevant as a hockey market without the singular figure who made it one. Ovechkin didn't just play for the Capitals. He was the reason most non-hockey fans outside the Beltway knew the Capitals existed. That kind of identification between a player and a franchise happens once in a generation. When it ends, the franchise has to figure out who it is without the person who defined it.

Ovechkin leaves with numbers that may never be matched, a ring that Washington waited nearly half a century for, and a legacy that belongs entirely to one city. The greatest goal scorer in hockey history is playing his last games. Eleven goals separate him from Gretzky's last remaining record. Based on the last 21 years, those 11 goals are coming.