Take Town: The Washington Capitals and Alex Ovechkin's all-time goal chase

It still kinda doesn't feel real that Alex Ovechkin is going to pass Wayne Gretzky before the end of this season.

He's three goals away after scoring in both ends of a back-to-back, and is one shy from yet another 40-goal season. Despite missing a bunch of time with a broken leg. At age 39. Just wild stuff.

But you go on the ESPN Plus App, and it's the No. 1 story. It's of course the top item on NHL.com and it has its own little graphic and everything. On the game last night, they had Gary Bettman on and pointed out that he was the commissioner when Gretzky passed Gordie Howe, which is crazy to think about. They asked if he thought he'd ever see someone pass Gretzky, and of course the answer was "no one did." Which is true. Especially because Ovechkin had those two weird 30-something-goal seasons in his mid-20s, and lost about 100 games of his career to a lockout and two COVID-shortened seasons. That probably cost the big fella his shot at 1,000 career goals, but stranger things have happened, such as the previous 892 goals.

So here's a question for ya: Does anyone pass Ovechkin? Let's say he finishes this contract, and therefore probably his NHL career in the 930-940 range. The only established high-volume goalscorers who are even close to young enough for it to be semi-plausible are Leon Draisaitl, whose next goal will be the 400th of his career, and Auston Matthews, who's currently at 397. Draisaitl is 29, though, and at about the same age, Ovechkin had 76 more goals in 29 fewer games played.

What's interesting is that Matthews is actually averaging 1.7 more goals per 82 through the first nine seasons of his career, but you gotta ask questions about whether he can keep up this pace for another 800ish games. That's basically what Ovechkin did, and is still doing. And, more to the point, you gotta ask whether Matthews can stay healthy enough to be in the lineup for 75ish games a year over the next decade.

Because that's what the actual superpower here is. It's the ability to be an elite shooter for two decades and be in the lineup almost every night. Gretzky is "The Great One" because he, too, was able to stay in the lineup for the vast majority of his career. He wasn't plagued by injuries and health issues the same way Mario Lemieux was. They are separated by just 0.0038 points per game for their careers, but because Gretzky got into almost 600 more games by playing at a very high level until he was 38, the gap in actual points is enormous. That's just the reality of being healthy every night, not a knock on Lemieux; if, all things considered, you believe he's the best player to ever put on a pair of skates, I won't argue with you but I will tap the sign next to me that says "Bobby Orr." (That guy had his own injury issues.)

You can say Ovechkin stayed healthy because the rules of the cap era are a lot more skill-friendly than they used to be. Defenders actually aren't allowed to water-ski on him or slash him in the wrist with relative impunity. But also: There's never been a more difficult era for scoring goals. We're talking over a decade of a league-average .910-plus save percentage. In era-adjusted goals, Ovechkin (997) blew past Gretzky (758) years ago and has been No. 1 for quite some time (Howe's 925 was the previous record).

Basically what I'm saying is this really might be the outer limit of what's achievable in the sport as it's currently constituted. Maybe like 15, 20 years from now if the league is at 40-plus teams, the talent pool will be sufficiently thinned out that someone who's currently in kindergarten can put together a half-dozen 60-goal seasons and at least make it interesting.

But it'll probably be, like, Sergei Ovechkin.

A conundrum

I have been thinking a lot lately about the state of the Presidents' Trophy race.

It's a two-team contest, the Winnipeg Jets have a one-point lead on the Washington Capitals in the same number of games played. They also have three more wins, but the Caps actually has a one-game advantage in regulation wins. By points percentage, they are separated by less than .007.

(If you wanna say Dallas being four points out with a game in hand makes them "in it," too? Have fun out there.)

And yet, doesn't it feel like no one is particularly impressed with any of those top two — or three if you're a sicko — teams? Yup, they're good. But if you're a fan of a Wild Card team are you, like, terrified to face any of them in the first round? Are you even all that willing to be like, "Well, they're having a great regular season?"

Kinda feels like you can't be. I think I know why.

The average hockey fan is smarter than they used to be. They know what an actual elite team looks like, and more to the point, they know percentage-driven success when they see it. The Capitals have the highest team shooting percentage in the league (12.9 percent in all situations) and the Jets are third by that metric (12.1 percent). The Jets also, of course of course of course, have the best goalie in the world and thus the best team save percentage in the league (.913) and the Caps are eighth (.900). They're 10th and 11th in all-situations expected-goals percentage, too, but there are teams in front of them by that measure with better track records, higher talent levels, and a hell of a lot more recent postseason success. Also, Washington and Winnipeg are two of the "luckiest" teams in the league in terms of avoiding injuries to their best players — with all due respect to Ovechkin's broken leg. Man, he barely missed five weeks.

And look, you don't finish with the best regular-season title getting poor or even average percentage luck, right? We can all agree with the idea that good teams tend to get good goaltending and score a lot, because they have good players. But just, vibes-wise, neither the Caps nor the Jets feel like they're gonna make it to, say, the Conference Finals. They totally could, but even with the best regular-season record, I feel like most neutrals would say, "Huh, they did? Good for them, I guess," as opposed to being like, "Yeah, of course they did."

Put another way, I just don't think you can look at a team like Washington and think, "Oh no, what if we have to play Logan Thompson in the first round?" or, with Winnipeg, you can think to yourself, "Playoff Connor Hellebuyck sure seems different from regular-season Connor Hellebuyck." You'd have to be a little less psyched to draw the latter, but you can also talk yourself into not being super-worried about the draw.

But to circle back to the Dallas thing: Let's say they finish as strongly as possible, the Caps and Jets fade down the stretch, and the Stars are your 2025 Presidents' Trophy winners. The Stars have the eighth-best xGF% in all situations but doesn't it feel like they come by their fifth-best shooting percentage and second-highest save percentage a little more honestly. More established talent at most positions, suffering through long-term injuries to highly paid players.

That is maybe kinda-sorta worrisome if you're getting them in the first round.

Unless you're the Blues, because you're the hottest team in hockey and there's no one you're particularly concerned about.

Speaking of Logan Thompson…

A lot has been made of the slump Igor Shesterkin has suffered through since signing his big extension.

The Rangers agreed to give him $92 million over the next eight years on Dec. 8, and since that day, he's a slightly above-average .903, though with only a 16-17-4 record. Some have dubbed him "Piggy Iggy" for taking such a big contract and then being so relatively ordinary, but guess what, gang: All Rangers success over the past few years has been almost entirely predicated on whether Shesterkin was good, and to a lesser extent, how well the power play was doing at any given time. Hard to forget that there were calls just last season to let Jonathan Quick be the starter for a while because Shesterkin had a rough couple weeks and the Rangers started to spiral.

So how does this relate to Thompson? Well, he signed his big six-year deal on Jan. 27, and since then, he's got a terrible .884 save percentage, and the only difference is he's somehow 9-4-3 in that stretch. Well, the "somehow" is "they shot 13.5 percent in those 16 games," but they also outshot those opponents by 23, so that's not bad or anything.

And in case you're wondering, Charlie Lindgren is .880 since Jan. 28, but is 6-3-1. You can make some educated guesses on the stats there (says here "12.3 percent shooting with a minus-4 shot difference").

Just saying, that's another reason why I might not be mega-concerned if my team's first-round draw is the Capitals.