The king of the club “over 30” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 6 (7451) of 01/16/2023

Alexander Ovechkin, having scored the puck in the NHL regular season game against the Philadelphia Flyers, set another statistical achievement. He became a co-owner of the record for most seasons with at least 30 goals scored. Ovechkin’s superb performance, however, doesn’t correlate too well with the results of his Washington Capitals club, which can’t feel confident in the race for a playoff spot so far.

The next match of the NHL regular season was unsuccessful for Washington. On his own site, he lost – 1: 3 – to Philadelphia, which looks mediocre this season. But still, it was the Washington hockey player who was in the spotlight after the game.

The only one who managed to excel in the hosts was Alexander Ovechkin. For the outstanding Russian forward, the puck was 810th in his career in the regular championships in general (84 remained before Wayne Gretzky, who occupies the top line in the sniper classification of all time) and 30th in the current regular championship. And that meant that Ovechkin had set God knows what a statistical achievement by becoming a co-owner of a fairly significant record. The 30-goal milestone in the regular season is the mark that a good scorer is supposed to achieve. So, Alexander Ovechkin now has 17 seasons with at least three dozen goals in his asset. That is, these are all his North American seasons, except for one – the year before last. In it, Ovechkin had 24 goals. But then the regular season was significantly reduced due to the coronavirus pandemic. Only Mike Gartner, who played in the 1980s and 1990s (and also for Washington) had the same number of such seasons. So he and Ovechkin are co-owners of the record.

However, closer to the finish of the championship, Alexander Ovechkin will most likely become the sole owner of another, even more striking record from the same category. In the NHL, there is also a kind of grandmaster sniper mark – 50 goals. At the moment, there are three hockey players who have reached it nine times. This is Ovechkin, as well as the legends of the past – Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy. But there is little doubt that the Russian will surpass them in the spring.

Alexander Ovechkin in this regular season at 37 attacks other people’s gates as effectively as in his youth. He spent 45 matches on his 30 goals. If he sticks to the schedule, he will score 54 goals by the end of the regular season. Or maybe even more, given that at the junction of December and January, the Russian is already very “hot” – ten goals in ten games. You can even assume that Ovechkin will compete for an extremely high place in the sniper race. He is tied for fourth with the Vancouver Canucks’ Bo Horvath, but none of the competitors, with the exception of Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers (37 goals), are far behind.

Another thing is that the results of his club correlate badly with the personal results of Alexander Ovechkin. “Washington” is still extremely uneven and can not feel calm. He is fourth in his Metropolitan division and seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. This is the “play-off zone”, but, in essence, its lower limit. Failure – and cup dreams will have to say goodbye ahead of schedule.

Alexey Dospekhov