ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals have had plenty to celebrate over the last calendar year. Ovechkin, now 40, scored his 895th career goal to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time NHL record on April 6, reaching a milestone that once seemed untouchable. Almost exactly six months later, Ovechkin became the first player in the league\u2019s history to reach the 900-goal mark, and he played his 1,500th game in October.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Wednesday\u2019s pregame ceremony celebrating Ovechkin\u2019s milestones this season, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was asked whether any of the sport\u2019s younger players had a comparable mindset to players like Ovechkin and Gretzky. Carbery pointed to the rarity of both of Ovechkin\u2019s recent achievements \u2014 highlighting his goalscoring talent as well as his ability to resist aging as vital factors for any player looking to catch up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many great players in the league right now. I\u2019d be hard pressed, though, that company that you\u2019re talking about, the Ovis and Waynes \u2014 I mean, you look at Connor (McDavid) and \u2014 but I mean, they are in rare, rare company, of what they\u2019ve been able to do for as long (as they have),\u201d Carbery said. \u201cThat\u2019s the key, right? Is the consistency and to be able to do it for 17, 18, 19 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some phenomenal players in the league that you look at right now. If they continue to do that for another 10 years \u2014 but that\u2019s hard. That\u2019s half the battle, is the attrition of being able to play at such a high level: score, and produce, and be productive, and still be a difference maker on a winning hockey team. And to be able to do that for 20 years, those two guys are one of a kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDavid has a ways to go to match Ovechkin\u2019s early-career scoring. He\u2019s earned 371 goals in 737 games, compared to Ovechkin\u2019s 459 goals in that span. Auston Matthews, who Carbery coached in Toronto, has a better chance: he\u2019s scored 410 goals in 646 career games, compared to Ovechkin\u2019s 405.<\/p>\n
Neither player, however, has matched Ovechkin\u2019s resilience. McDavid has missed 71 career games in 10 seasons, while Matthews has missed 76 over nine seasons. Ovechkin, meanwhile, has missed just 76 total games over his 21-season NHL career. If either player wanted a chance of topping Ovechkin\u2019s record, they\u2019d need to stay healthy \u2014 and productive \u2014 for at least another decade.<\/p>\n
Carbery is no stranger to seeing Ovechkin make history by this point, and he admitted that it\u2019s easy to forget just how impressive his career has been. But even if it doesn\u2019t fully sink in now, Carbery knows he\u2019ll be grateful for these moments long after his coaching career is done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve had a front row seat the last two and a half years of getting to witness greatness firsthand,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cI think I\u2019ll appreciate it so much more looking back and just going like, \u2018I was there for that, that, that, that,\u2019 all these different moments of being able to have a front row seat and be along for the ride. Because it is, I\u2019ve said this a bunch through the chase and through the last two years, you almost take it a little bit for granted, that it\u2019s just like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s Alex. Of course, he\u2019s the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game. Of course, he\u2019s going to play 1500 games.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be scoring the way he has at the point in his career and throughout his career is just hard to wrap your head around. I think the appreciation I have and will have \u2014 I was actually thinking about this, I ran into him yesterday on the off day at the rink \u2014 of just (that) I\u2019ve been able to get to coach the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game for the last two and a half years, and I\u2019m going to be able to look back on that and go, \u2018Wow.\u2019 (I\u2019m) very, very fortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals have had plenty to celebrate over the last calendar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-316331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316331","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=316331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}