Testing Father Time
Alex Ovechkin is the NHL’s best goal scorer of this generation, but at age 32 what’s a realistic expectation? The Washington Capitals still think he can score 50, or at least more than his 33 last year.
ARLINGTON, VA. — Alex Ovechkin has scored 50 goals so regularly that finishing with 30-something was a disappointment.
Ovechkin is responsible for seven of the 20 times any player has scored 50 goals in a season since he entered the league in 2005. As Washington Capitals teammate T.J. Oshie pointed out, Ovechkin is “a pure goal-scorer, the best of our time,” and his 558 career goals are well ahead of everyone else in the NHL in that time.
The NHL season began Wednesday night and the challenge now is for Ovechkin, 32, to keep it up going into his 13th season. His 33 goals last season were his fewest in an 82-game season since 2010-11, and now the Capitals need him to up the ante after several key offseason losses.
“Last year’s the minimum,” general manager Brian MacLellan said Tuesday. “I think he can get more goals than that.”
But how many goals are realistic? Coach Barry Trotz thinks “you keep the bar at 50” until Ovechkin doesn’t get there.
The Russian superstar who will start the season on Washington’s second line alongside countryman Evgeny Kuznetsov still thinks 50 is possible even as it becomes a rare milestone.
“Why not?” Ovechkin said. “You have opportunities to score goals. You have chances. You just have to put the puck in. Obviously without shots, you can’t score. If you have a chance, you have to put it in.”