Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin skates in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Credit: © Andy Martin Jr, Alamy Images

GOAL! In December, professional hockey player Alex Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals, became the player with the second most goals in NHL history with 802 goals. He passed Gordie Howe’s record of 801 points. Hockey star Wayne Gretzky holds the number one record with 894 goals. However, Ovechkin isn’t retiring anytime soon!

He scored two goals in a game against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, December 23rd, 2022. His first goal of the game tied him with Howe in the first quarter. With one minute left in the third quarter, he gracefully shot the puck into the goal to beat Howe’s record. The Capitals defeated the Jets 4 to 1.

Alexander Ovechkin is a Russian-born hockey player. He is one of the stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). Ovechkin, a left wing for the Washington Capitals, led the NHL in scoring with 112 points (65 goals and 47 assists) in the 2007-2008 season. He has led the league in goals scored nine times (2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020).

Ovechkin won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2012-2013 seasons. He also won the Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010 seasons. The award is given to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by the league’s players. In 2018, Ovechkin led Washington to its first Stanley Cup championship. He was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the 2018 playoffs.

Ovechkin was born on September 17th, 1985, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. (now Russia). He began playing hockey with Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League in 2001 at the age of 16 and spent four seasons with the team. Ovechkin was chosen by Washington as the first player selected in the 2004 NHL draft. However, he did not play with the Capitals until 2005, because the 2004-2005 NHL season was canceled due to a labor dispute between the players and owners. Ovechkin won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 2006 as the NHL Rookie of the Year. His 65 goals in 2007-2008 set an NHL record for left wingers.

Ovechkin helped the Russian national team win the men’s world championship in 2008. He played for Russia in the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games.

June 13, 2018

Last week, on June 7, the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL) stunned the Vegas Golden Knights with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory to win the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final four games to one. The Capitals scored two goals midway through the third period, erasing a 3-2 deficit along with 44 years of NHL shortcomings. It was the first Stanley Cup win for Washington (D.C.), a team that had enjoyed much regular season success but none in the postseason since entering the NHL in 1974.

Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals raises the Stanley Cup after his team defeated the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on June 7, 2018. Credit: © Jeff Bottari, Getty Images

The Capitals long-awaited title ended the hopes of the upstart Golden Knights, a first-year expansion team that made an improbable run through the playoffs to reach the final. The freshly minted Golden Knights fans showed their appreciation, however, cheering their team off the ice after the final horn ended the season late Thursday at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

Since Washington’s first NHL season in 1974-1975, the Capitals had made just one appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, a demoralizing sweep by the Detroit Red Wings in 1998. In recent years, the Caps, led by star left winger Alex Ovechkin, tantalized their fans by winning 7 of the last 10 division championships. Much to the team’s and its fans’ disappointment, however, they were bounced early from the playoffs each time. This year was different. The Caps roared through the postseason, knocking off the Columbus Blue Jackets and the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins before outlasting the Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought seven-game Eastern Conference Final.

Ovechkin led the Caps run, and he earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Ovechkin scored 3 of his playoff-best 15 goals in the final series against Vegas. Centers Evgeny Kuznetsov (20 assists) and Nicklas Backstrom, winger T.J. Oshie, defender John Carlson, and goalie Braden Holtby all played key roles for the Caps in the postseason. Journeyman Devante Smith-Pelly, a fourth-line forward, brought unexpected scoring to his team. He tallied seven playoff goals, including three during the final’s five games.

Compared with long-suffering Capitals fanatics, Golden Knights fans were born with silver (or was it golden?) spoons in their mouths. Vegas compiled the most successful season for a first-year expansion team in NHL history. Vegas almost paired its spoons with a big silver cup following its regular season Pacific Division crown and a rampage during the Western Conference playoffs. Led by centers William Karlsson and Jon Marchessault, wingers David Perron and Reilly Smith, defender Nate Schmidt, and star goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, the Golden Knights bested the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks before beating the Winnipeg Jets in the conference final. The Jets playoff crash continued the Stanley Cup drought for Canadian teams. The last team from north of the border to reach the final was the Vancouver Canucks in 2011, and the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993—lamentable statistics for hockey’s home country.

Vegas was the first expansion team to reach the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season since the St. Louis Blues did it in 1968. Like the Golden Knights, the Blues ran out of magic in the final, where they lost to the Canadiens four games to none.