Pursuit of Gretzky’s goal record hits a snag

Alex Ovechkin hasn’t been himself. The nine-time 50-goal scorer is in the midst of a 10-game goal-scoring slump, tying the longest drought of his 19-year career. Through 25 games, Ovechkin has more than twice as many assists

(11) as goals (five, two of which are empty-net tallies), putting him on pace to finish this season campaign with just 16 goals, which would easily be his lowest single-season total. That, in turn, has cast doubt on his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time career mark of 894 goals, with Ovechkin stuck on 827, still 67 goals away.

Over the past few years, it appeared to be a matter of not if but when Ovechkin would become the all-time goal-scoring leader. As the milestones piled up, virtually every year The Washington Post has tracked his chances of securing the top spot — even the possibility of him soaring past Gretzky and scoring 1,000 goals. This current pace has some Ovechkin fans worried. But even a clunker of a season won’t completely derail his pursuit of Gretzky’s record, and in any case, Ovechkin’s current campaign isn’t as dismal as it appears.

One way we can guesstimate Ovechkin’s chances is by using the favorite toy, a formula created by baseball analyst Bill James that calculates the probability a player (in any sport) achieves a cumulative statistical goal. The formula has four inputs:

In this case it is 72 goals minus whatever Ovechkin adds this season.

1. Number needed to achieve goal. 2. Projected seasons remaining for the player, calculated by the formula (24 – .6(age)).

Ovechkin, 38, is under contract for the next two seasons after this one, with the possibility of a few more after that. One caveat to the formula is a player can never have less than 1 ½ seasons to complete the task, so for the purposes of this exercise, we will give Ovechkin 1½ remaining seasons after the completion of this campaign.

3. Established level for that statistic.

James forecasts this as (last season*3+second to last season*2+third to last season)/6. Ovechkin tallied 50 goals in 2021-22, 42 goals in 2022-23 and an estimated 16 goals in 2023-24, making his established level 30.3 goals per season under this formula.

which is simply the last two numbers multiplied.

4. Projected remaining total,

The chance of getting to the goal is then determined by the following:

[Projected remaining total – (Number needed/2) / Number needed]

By this method, Ovechkin has a 30% chance to break the record — assuming he only gets 16 goals this season, and only logs a season and a half after this campaign concludes. If he finishes with 20 goals, that would bump up his chances to 42%. A 25-goal season would improve his chances to 59%, and bring renewed and justified optimism that Ovechkin will one day reign as the supreme goal-scoring king of the NHL. And of course, he could still play longer than one and a half seasons after this one.

At this point, I still believe Ovechkin deserves the benefit of the doubt. Most players decline after the age of

30, but Ovechkin continued to pace the league in goals scored, winning the Rocket Richard Trophy as the top goal scorer three straight seasons from 2018 to 2020 — and giving him a total of nine such accolades. His shot volume this season, 3.6 shots per game, has declined to what would be a career low, but it is still high enough to rank 18th out of 334 forwards who have played at least 20 games.

Ovechkin maintaining such an impressive shot volume was always looked at as a bucking of the aging curve, so this could be a leading indicator that age is finally catching up to him. Still, his shot volume remains at an elite level, even if it’s dipped.

The wild cards here are injury and opportunity. Ovechkin has remained remarkably healthy over his career, but playing power forward in the NHL is going to take a toll on a person’s body, especially at age 38. Plus, if this slump continues, Coach Spencer Carbery might have no choice but to tinker with the power play, something he’s admitted to thinking about, perhaps moving Ovechkin from his familiar spot at the left faceoff circle.

If either of those things happen, Ovechkin’s chase of Gretzky’s coveted scoring mark could become a lot more complicated.