On Sunday, April 6, 2025, Alex Ovechkin took the record for most goals in NHL history. The following is provided without comment.
I don’t like [Ovechkin’s goal celebrations] personally, but that’s him and like it our not that’s what he does. Some people like it, some people don’t. Personally I don’t like it.
I was shocked that it was this one-sided. And I was really disappointed that these guys came with their eurotrash game. It was just no heart, no guts, no nothing there to back it up. I mean Alex Ovechkin was an average player tonight. I know they’re going to bounce back, but to be that poor and to be that intimidated physically by the Canadians, that really shocked me.
I am predicting someone’s going to get [Ovechkin], and someone’s going to get him good.
Capitals fans might as well stop with the argument that Ovechkin is a better player; sure he is a bigger scorer and more entertaining player. But […] Ovechkin would need a telescope to see Crosby, who’s that far ahead in this race.
There are whispers and maybe even some out-loud conversations around the hockey world about Ovechkin’s problem being a lack of artificial help. In other words, performance-enhancing drugs.
The guy was superhuman when he first came into the league. He had the hardest shot anybody had seen in years. Goalies around the league talked about how it was different from everybody else’s shot.
He’s taking about half as many shots as he used to.
Is any of this proof that Ovechkin’s performance was enhanced before, and now it’s not? No. But, you combine it with the fact that his doctor was charged with bringing PEDs over the border from Canada, and it gives you the right to be suspicious.
The Capitals don’t have soldiers. Not enough anyway. Instead they have divas: players who only care when they have to and do so only on their own terms. The regular season saw players sleepwalking through games, perhaps even literally. We saw some players vacillate between disinterest and self-interest. We saw players ditching Dean Evason’s and Bob Woods’ systems at will. Those bad habits became a pattern, and those swift postseasons became reckonings. Case in point: Alex Ovechkin’s suicide run into the Tampa Bay Lightning’s trap when the dump-in hard-around was the right and authorized move.
I’ve said before I think #Caps would’ve been better off selecting Evgeni Malkin than Ovechkin. […] I don’t think Ovechkin hits 50 goals ever again.
No, I do not [think Ovechkin is capable of scoring 50 goals again].
[Kirk] Muller’s Canadiens wrote the playbook against Ovechkin in that series: Taking away his space, and understanding he had a limited toolbox of moves from which to draw.
The game has changed a lot in the last three, four years. Coaches have found ways to make it much more difficult to come through the neutral zone with steam with one guy carrying the puck, and Ovie likes to do that. In some ways he became a little too predictable.
When you’re a big star like this, you don’t have to act like a baby. This is ridiculous embellishment. He should be embarrassed by this and so should his teammates. That is silly. Get up and act like a man for god’s sake.
And this one: move your butt along the wall. You just stand there. I’ve seen this for three years. You think someone would figure this out and tell him he’s gotta move.
And look at the effort on the backcheck. Are you kidding me? This is a guy that makes a ton of money. He owes it to his owner, he owes it to his coach. And watch him line-change on the goal. That is inexcusable behavior.
Okay, I’m gonna say it. I have tons of guys that played in the National Hockey League for years and we get together and we say this is hype. Alex Ovechkin is hype. Would you trade him for Sidney Crosby? [No!] Would you trade him for Jonathan Toews? [No!] Anze Kopitar? [No!] Ryan Getzlaf? [Absolutely not!] No, you wouldn’t do that! Alex Ovechkin is a hype. There’s too much there. He’s minus-14 on a team that’s 20-14-5. I think he’s got a lot to prove to guys. Yes, he’s very, very talented. Yes, he can skate. Yes, he’s got courage. We saw with Dale Hunter. Dale Hunter, look at him, he’s blowing a gasket there because Alex Ovechkin plays through everybody else’s shift, he cheats on the ice, 5-on-5 he’s atrocious. He’s a minus player. He’s got a long way to go to get hockey people to believe that he’s in the MVP category.
You know, lot of guys, and I try to do it too, we spend time with these young kids that are learning the game. I do not think this is an example that the young kids need to watch. A Toews, a Crosby, so many great players in the game. Let’s talk about those guys. Let’s talk about how they play.
To me, this 26 goals is a specialty act. And I hate to diminish it, it’s a hell of an act, but [he’s] not the complete hockey player you want. That’s why I’m not as excited or titillated by Ovechkin suddenly hitting the 26-goal column.
Their history – when they take a lead, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, it means nothing, they choke all the time. But [Ovechkin’s] history, his history is the same history. Whether we’re talking about Olympic competition or international competition, same thing, where he comes up so short and then just offers excuse after excuse afterward. I don’t know who’s more pathetic, Ovechkin or your boy Sergio Garcia at this this point. I really don’t.
When I think of Ovechkin, I find his game is very predictable. I really do. You know, when he gets frustrated, he gets physical and gets upset. Stamkos finds a way to work through everything. I give him the nod for – if I’m comparing these two guys – is not as physically blessed as Ovechkin, but he gets a nod for [his] smart[s] for me. He works through his slumps. He finds openings, works harder, and forces the game to respect him.
[Stamkos] talks about team first. It’s always, ‘we did this.’ …When Ovechkin talks, it’s ‘I did this.’
[Washington’s] culture needs a reboot.And that starts with ripping the C off the sweater of captain Alex Ovechkin.
[…]But there is one very compelling reason why the Capitals have to do it anyway. For all his charisma and once-in-a-generation scoring touch, Ovechkin has shown time and again that he’s just not cut out for the role of team leader.
Alex Ovechkin to KHL would be blessing in disguise for Capitals
Two weeks into the offseason, the debate continues. Ovechkin is either a gifted goal scorer whose offensive prowess is the Capitals’ most essential asset or a brooding prima donna whose primary concerns are his own stats, one who refuses to learn defensive responsibilities a decade into his career.
He is not coachable. Here’s the number that matters to me: $124 million deal that goes to ’20-21. The only one who’s got a longer deal than that is Rogers! Last year, 51 goals, minus-35. He didn’t listen to [Glen] Hanlon, didn’t listen to [Bruce] Boudreau, [Dale] Hunter, [Adam] Oates, Trotz. This same owner fired all those five guys. And there are three more that are gonna get fired by the time it’s over. You know what, call his agent, get his agent to talk some sense into him. It’s his mom! His mom’s his agent! No chance. He’s not a coachable player and the numbers don’t lie.
I think we have great offense, but on the defensive side, if you look at my stats, I’m a minus-13 or minus-14. It’s kind of a situation where you want to be better.
How bad do you have to be defensively when you score 51 goals and still end up at minus-35?
The answer is that a player has to be horseshit defensively.
I’m paid by NBC to be an NHL analyst. Ovechkin had a ridiculously poor season and unfortunately I had to take him to the woodshed because of that. I called him out, and I think Ovi understood.
If [Ovechkin’s penalties are] going on again, then there’s not going to be a lot of power play and playing time. If my message is not getting through, then the only thing I have is really ice time.
I don’t think somebody will beat this record. In this hockey right now, in this league, I think it’s impossible. I have to have six seasons with 50 goals. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to skate in six seasons!
“He should never have been named the captain,” said one person with first-hand knowledge of the situation. “You’re asking him to do something he’s not capable of.”
Well, I’m not Michael Jordan.
Ovechkin is no spring ovenchicken. He’ll turn 36 before next season begins, and even for a machine like him durability will eventually become hard to maintain. When we discuss the Gretzky goal record, I worry less about Ovechkin’s scoring drying up and more about there just not being enough games.
[Steven Stamkos] has that speed, that talent, that ability to create, because of his talent and his brain. I can’t say the same thing about Ovechkin. Would Ovechkin be where he is today if he didn’t play with [Nicklas Backstrom] his whole career? Probably not. He’s the best goal scorer I’ve ever seen, but when I look at someone as multi-dimensionally dangerous as Stamkos, he makes other players better around him.
It’s less about the scoring. […] It’s more his skating ability. […] He’s not hitting anymore because he’s not close enough to guys to be physical. He passes so much so that he can get to spots on the ice and it’s harder for him to create one-on-one. His shot looks off because it’s so hard for him to get places on the ice. I don’t know why this is happening, but it’s what I’m seeing. Could it improve? Sure. Is he done? It’s kinda heartbreaking to put out there because I’ve been ignoring it and hoping it would just all come back together.
We just didn’t score – our line didn’t score lots of goals. Blame on me, I didn’t play well so it’s suck that we end up like that.
Well, I give Spencer Carbery and his coaching staff an awful lot of credit. We all know that Alex Ovechkin’s been a bit of a one-trick pony throughout his NHL career, but that has not been the case [this season].
Alex Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record against Islanders with 895th career goal
