{"id":65621,"date":"2025-07-14T19:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65621\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T19:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:10:07","slug":"alex-ovechkin-on-potential-to-break-wayne-gretzkys-nhl-record-for-combined-regular-season-and-playoff-goals-im-not-looking-that-far-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65621\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ovechkin on potential to break Wayne Gretzky\u2019s NHL record for combined regular-season and playoff goals: \u2018I\u2019m not looking that far ahead\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After passing Wayne Gretzky with his 895th career goal in April, Alex Ovechkin<\/strong> could soon break another one of the Great One\u2019s records \u2014 perhaps depending on how long he plays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Though Ovechkin now holds the all-time record for regular-season NHL goals, Gretzky still ranks first in combined regular-season and playoff goals, scoring 1,016 times to Ovechkin\u2019s 974. Ovechkin may be just 42 goals away from another historic marker, but he told reporters at the \u201cMatch of the Year\u201d charity game on Sunday that he wasn\u2019t thinking about that record just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not looking that far ahead,\u201d Ovechkin said, per TASS<\/a> and translated via Google Translate. \u201cWe\u2019ll fight game after game and try to play. Our secret is unity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ovechkin, 39, ranked third in the league with 44 regular-season goals in 2024-25 despite missing 17 games with a broken leg. He scored five more times in the playoffs to finish the season with 49 total goals.<\/p>\n

His deferential response on Sunday mirrored many of his comments from last season, where taking it \u201cgame by game\u201d<\/a> and \u201cshift by shift\u201d became his common refrain even as he drew closer to Gretzky\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

With one year left on his contract, Ovechkin has quashed retirement rumors<\/a> ahead of the 2024-25 season, though his future beyond that remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould I stay in the NHL for another season? Anything is possible,\u201d he noted at the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if next year proves his last in the NHL, Ovechkin still has a solid chance of passing Gretzky\u2019s combined goals record before hanging up his skates. He has recorded the required 42 goals or more in three of his last four seasons, with the exception being a 2023-24 campaign that saw him start slow before scoring 22 goals in 35 games after the All-Star Break.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin has the potential to capture several more records<\/a> if he continues his career, including the all-time professional goals record (where he trains Jaromir Jagr 1,042 to 1,106).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After passing Wayne Gretzky with his 895th career goal in April, Alex Ovechkin could soon break another one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":65622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-65621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114853172585903652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}