A once seemingly unbreakable NHL record could fall as early as the 2024-25 season thanks to the goal-scoring prowess of Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin.
The Great Eight is within striking distance of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals record of 894, which Gretzky reached on March 29, 1999, against the New York Islanders. Ovechkin began this season with 853 career goals.
He’s now at 869, after scoring an empty-netter late in his return from injury on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Capitals won 5-2.
“It’s just a matter of time, whether it’s late this year, early next year, whenever,” Gretzky told NHL.com earlier this season about Ovechkin’s chances of breaking his record. “I mean, he’s a great player. He’s a great goal scorer.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in December that he will follow Ovechkin around when he’s within four or five goals of the record with Gretzky accompanying him.
Ovechkin started this season red-hot, with 15 goals in his first 18 games. His golden touch continued since the end of the 2023-24 season when he tallied 13 goals over his last 17 games — making it a stretch of 35 goals in his last 35 games dating back to March of last season.
Unfortunately, a fractured fibula sidelined Ovechkin on Nov. 18, causing him to miss 16 games for the Capitals. The Capitals captain has been durable for his entire NHL career, having missed only 75 games due to injury since breaking in during the 2005-06 season.
We will track Ovechkin’s race to 894 goals and beyond all season.
NHL top-10 in career goals
1. Wayne Gretzky (894)
2. Alex Ovechkin (869)
3. Gordie Howe (801)
4. Jaromir Jagr (766)
5. Brett Hull (741)
6. Marcel Dionne (731)
7. Phil Esposito (717)
8. Mike Gartner (708)
9. Mark Messier (694)
10. Steve Yzerman (692)
Remaining 2024-25 regular-season games
Sun, Dec 29: at Detroit, 5 p.m. ET
Tue, Dec 31: vs. Boston, 12:30 p.m. ET
Thu, Jan 2: vs. Minnesota, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Jan 4: vs. Rangers, 12 p.m. ET
Mon, Jan 6: at Buffalo, 7 p.m. ET
Wed, Jan 8: vs. Vancouver, 7:30 p.m. ET
Fri, Jan 10: vs. Montreal, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Jan 11: at Nashville, 8 p.m. ET
Tue, Jan 14: vs. Anaheim, 7 p.m. ET
Thu, Jan 16: at Ottawa, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Jan 18: vs. Pittsburgh, 7 p.m. ET
Tue, Jan 21: at Edmonton, 9 p.m. ET
Thu, Jan 23: at Seattle, 10 p.m. ET
Sat, Jan 25: at Vancouver, 10 p.m. ET
Tue, Jan 28: at Calgary, 9 p.m. ET
Thu, Jan 30: at Ottawa, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Feb 1: vs. Winnipeg, 7 p.m. ET
Tue, Feb 4: vs. Florida, 7 p.m. ET
Thu, Feb 6: at Philadelphia, 7 p.m. ET
Sun, Feb 9: vs. Utah, 12:30 p.m. ET
Sat, Feb 22: at Pittsburgh, 3 p.m. ET
Sun, Feb 23: vs. Edmonton, 1 p.m. ET
Tue, Feb 25: vs. Calgary, 7 p.m. ET
Thu, Feb 27: vs. St. Louis, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Mar 1: vs. Tampa Bay, 12:30 p.m. ET
Mon, Mar 3: vs. Ottawa, 6:30 p.m. ET
Wed, Mar 5: at Rangers, 7 p.m. ET
Fri, Mar 7: vs. Detroit, 7 p.m. ET
Sun, Mar 9: vs. Seattle, 3:30 p.m. ET
Tue, Mar 11: at Anaheim, 10 p.m. ET
Thu, Mar 13: at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m. ET
Sat, Mar 15: at San Jose, 5 p.m. ET
Tue, Mar 18: vs. Detroit, 7 p.m. ET
Thu, Mar 20: vs. Philadelphia, 7 p.m. ET
Sat, Mar 22: vs. Florida, 5 p.m. ET
Tue, Mar 25: at Winnipeg, 8 p.m. ET
Thu, Mar 27: at Minnesota, 8 p.m. ET
Sun, Mar 30: vs. Buffalo, 3 p.m. ET
Tue, Apr 1: at Boston, 7 p.m. ET
Wed, Apr 2: at Carolina, 7 p.m. ET
Fri, Apr 4: vs. Chicago, 7 p.m. ET
Sun, Apr 6: at Islanders, 12:30 p.m. ET
Thu, Apr 10: vs. Carolina, 7:30 p.m. ET
Sat, Apr 12: at Columbus, 7 p.m. ET
Sun, Apr 13: vs. Columbus, 6 p.m. ET
Tue, Apr 15: at Islanders, 8 p.m. ET
Thu, Apr 17: at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m. ET
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Marc-Andre Fleury |
27 |
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Henrik Lundqvist |
24 |
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Kari Lehtonen |
22 |
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Carey Price |
22 |
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Cam Ward |
19 |
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Ryan Miller |
19 |
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Ondrej Pavelec |
18 |
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Sergei Bobrovsky |
16 |
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Devan Dubnyk |
12 |
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Brian Elliott |
11 |
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Andrei Vasilevskiy |
11 |
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Craig Anderson |
10 |
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Jaroslav Halak |
10 |
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Ben Bishop |
10 |
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Tuukka Rask |
10 |
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Alexandar Georgiev |
10 |
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Roberto Luongo |
9 |
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Carter Hutton |
9 |
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Frederik Andersen |
9 |
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Petr Mrazek |
9 |
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Ray Emery |
8 |
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Martin Gerber |
8 |
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Tim Thomas |
8 |
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Scott Clemmensen |
8 |
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Vesa Toskala |
8 |
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Tomas Vokoun |
8 |
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Evgeni Nabokov |
8 |
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Jimmy Howard |
8 |
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Steve Mason |
8 |
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Cory Schneider |
8 |
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Semyon Varlamov |
8 |
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Martin Brodeur |
7 |
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Antero Niittymaki |
7 |
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Jean-Sebastien Giguere |
7 |
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John Grahame |
7 |
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Jonathan Quick |
7 |
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Jonathan Bernier |
7 |
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Cam Talbot |
7 |
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Thomas Greiss |
7 |
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Ed Belfour |
6 |
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Cristobal Huet |
6 |
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Miikka Kiprusoff |
6 |
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James Reimer |
6 |
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Jacob Markstrom |
6 |
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Matt Murray |
6 |
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Mackenzie Blackwood |
6 |
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Carter Hart |
6 |
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Pascal Leclaire |
5 |
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Robert Esche |
5 |
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Alex Auld |
5 |
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Rick DiPietro |
5 |
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Dwayne Roloson |
5 |
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Karri Ramo |
5 |
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Mike Smith |
5 |
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Dan Ellis |
5 |
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Curtis McElhinney |
5 |
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Corey Crawford |
5 |
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Martin Jones |
5 |
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Casey DeSmith |
5 |
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Jake Allen |
5 |
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Martin Biron |
4 |
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Johan Hedberg |
4 |
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Nikolai Khabibulin |
4 |
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Joey MacDonald |
4 |
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Antti Niemi |
4 |
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Jhonas Enroth |
4 |
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Ilya Bryzgalov |
4 |
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Dustin Tokarski |
4 |
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Al Montoya |
4 |
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Anton Khudobin |
4 |
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Anders Nilsson |
4 |
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Eddie Läck |
4 |
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Robin Lehner |
4 |
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John Gibson |
4 |
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Keith Kinkaid |
4 |
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Scott Darling |
4 |
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Connor Hellebuyck |
4 |
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Juuse Saros |
4 |
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Igor Shesterkin |
4 |
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Thatcher Demko |
4 |
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Elvis Merzlikins |
4 |
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Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen |
4 |
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Pyotr Kochetkov |
4 |
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Sean Burke |
3 |
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Marty Turco |
3 |
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Peter Budaj |
3 |
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Andrew Raycroft |
3 |
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Johan Holmqvist |
3 |
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Ty Conklin |
3 |
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Mike McKenna |
3 |
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Brent Johnson |
3 |
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Jose Theodore |
3 |
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Chad Johnson |
3 |
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Michael Hutchinson |
3 |
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Louis Domingue |
3 |
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Scott Wedgewood |
3 |
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Philipp Grubauer |
3 |
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Jordan Binnington |
3 |
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Alex Lyon |
3 |
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Daniil Tarasov |
3 |
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Nico Daws |
3 |
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Joseph Woll |
3 |
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Mikael Tellqvist |
2 |
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Chris Mason |
2 |
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Brian Boucher |
2 |
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Garth Snow |
2 |
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Mike Dunham |
2 |
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Marc Denis |
2 |
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Dany Sabourin |
2 |
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Steve Valiquette |
2 |
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Niklas Bäckström |
2 |
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Yann Danis |
2 |
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Jeff Deslauriers |
2 |
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Matt Hackett |
2 |
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Reto Berra |
2 |
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Viktor Fasth |
2 |
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Linus Ullmark |
2 |
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Andrew Hammond |
2 |
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Antti Raanta |
2 |
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Darcy Kuemper |
2 |
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Christopher Gibson |
2 |
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Jack Campbell |
2 |
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Pekka Rinne |
2 |
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Mikko Koskinen |
2 |
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Joonas Korpisalo |
2 |
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Marcus Hogberg |
2 |
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Alex Stalock |
2 |
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Daniel Vladar |
2 |
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Filip Gustavsson |
2 |
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Spencer Knight |
2 |
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Jake Oettinger |
2 |
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Tristan Jarry |
2 |
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Sam Montembeault |
2 |
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Logan Thompson |
2 |
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Spencer Martin |
2 |
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Kaapo Kahkonen |
2 |
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Alex Nedeljkovic |
2 |
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Samuel Ersson |
2 |
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Dustin Wolf |
2 |
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Ilya Samsonov |
2 |
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Kevin Weekes |
1 |
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Chris Osgood |
1 |
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Michael Garnett |
1 |
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Hannu Toivonen |
1 |
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Adam Munro |
1 |
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Curtis Sanford |
1 |
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Sebastien Caron |
1 |
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Jamie McLennan |
1 |
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Dominik Hasek |
1 |
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Fredrik Norrena |
1 |
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Olaf Kölzig |
1 |
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Michael Leighton |
1 |
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Patrick Lalime |
1 |
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Jonas Gustavsson |
1 |
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Nathan Lawson |
1 |
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Anders Lindbäck |
1 |
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Justin Peters |
1 |
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Ben Scrivens |
1 |
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Jason LaBarbera |
1 |
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Josh Harding |
1 |
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Marek Mazanec |
1 |
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Jonas Hiller |
1 |
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Anton Forsberg |
1 |
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Harri Sateri |
1 |
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Laurent Brossoit |
1 |
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Aaron Dell |
1 |
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Jeremy Swayman |
1 |
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Adin Hill |
1 |
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Chris Driedger |
1 |
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Ville Husso |
1 |
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Karel Vejmelka |
1 |
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Stuart Skinner |
1 |
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Felix Sandstrom |
1 |
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David Rittich |
1 |
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Pheonix Copley |
1 |
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Yaroslav Askarov |
1 |
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Cayden Primeau |
1 |
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Connor Ingram |
1 |
Ovechkin milestone goal timeline
No. 1: Oct. 2, 2005 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets (Pascal Leclaire)
No. 50: April 13, 2006 vs. Atlanta Thrashers (Mike Dunham)
No. 100: Oct. 12, 2007 vs. New York Rangers (Henrik Lundqvist)
No. 200: Feb. 5, 2009 (Jonathan Quick)
No. 300: April 5, 2011 (James Reimer)
No. 400: Dec. 20, 2013 (empty net)
No. 500: Jan. 10, 2016 (Andrew Hammond)
No. 600: March 12, 2018 (Connor Hellebuyck)
No. 700: Feb. 22, 2020 (Mackenzie Blackwood)
No. 800: Dec. 13, 2022 (Petr Mrazek)
Hat tricks by season (32 career)
2005-06: 1
2006-07: 1
2007-08: 3
2008-09: 3
2009-10: 1
2010-11: 1
2011-12: 0
2012-13: 2
2013-14: 1
2014-15: 0
2015-16: 2
2016-17: 2
2017-18: 3
2018-19: 3
2019-20: 4
2020-21: 0
2021-22: 1
2022-23: 2
2023-24: 0
2024-25: 1
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