{"id":241993,"date":"2025-10-21T21:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241993\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T21:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:58:08","slug":"bill-daly-comments-on-nhl-potentially-retiring-alex-ovechkins-number-8-jersey-weve-only-retired-one-number-thats-a-rarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241993\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Daly comments on NHL potentially retiring Alex Ovechkin\u2019s number 8 jersey: \u2018We\u2019ve only retired one number. That\u2019s a rarity.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL retired Wayne Gretzky\u2019s number 99 jersey leaguewide on February 6, 2000, during the 1999-00 season\u2019s NHL All-Star Game. Gretzky, who at the time was the league\u2019s all-time leader in goals, assists, and points, is the only player in NHL history to receive the honor.<\/p>\n<p>Gretzky lost one of those marks this past year, when Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin became the new all-time leading goal scorer, recording his 895th career goal against the New York Islanders on April 6. The Great One was on hand to personally congratulate Ovechkin and pass on the goal-scoring mantle to its new owner.<\/p>\n<p>Given the incredible achievement and how iconic Ovechkin\u2019s number 8 jersey has become, Championat\u2019s Vladimir Laevsky <a href=\"https:\/\/www.championat.com\/hockey\/article-6205928-intervyu-s-bossom-nhl-billom-dejli-ob-ovechkine-vyvedut-li-nomer-ovi-iz-obrascheniya-chto-v-nhl-dumayut-ob-ovi-900-j-gol-ovi.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently asked NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly<\/a> whether any thought was being given to having Ovechkin one day join Gretzky in the distinction of having his number retired leaguewide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe won\u2019t consider retiring his number until Ovi himself announces his retirement plans,\u201d Daly said as translated by Google Translate. \u201cAs you know, in the 107-year history of the league, we\u2019ve only retired one number. That\u2019s a rarity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ovechkin, 40, is currently playing out the final year on his contract with the Capitals and has made no commitment to continuing his NHL career past this season. While the league probably won\u2019t retire his number, Ovechkin\u2019s number 8 will almost certainly never be worn by another Capital.<\/p>\n<p>The legendary Russian winger could step away from the game tomorrow and leave DC as the team\u2019s franchise leader in goals, points, power-play goals, even-strength goals, game-winning goals, playoff goals, shots, and hat tricks. He\u2019s also the only captain of the Capitals to have led the franchise to a Stanley Cup championship, winning playoff MVP honors in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Over the summer, Ovechkin <a href=\"https:\/\/russianmachineneverbreaks.com\/2025\/08\/31\/alex-ovechkin-capitals-jersey-number-8-retirement\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was asked in his native Russia<\/a> if he had ever thought of the Capitals hoisting his number 8 to the rafters of Capital One Arena before. \u201cCall Washington and find out about it,\u201d Ovechkin replied.<\/p>\n<p>The Capitals have not retired a number since 2008, when Mike Gartner\u2019s number 11 was taken out of circulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL retired Wayne Gretzky\u2019s number 99 jersey leaguewide on February 6, 2000, during the 1999-00 season\u2019s NHL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-241993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}