Alex Ovechkin is eight goals away from making history. But take a breath Flyers fans. Barring the most incredible game ever played in the NHL, Ovechkin will not become the league’s all-time leading goal scorer on Thursday night.
While Philadelphia won’t see history made, they’ve certainly been a huge part of Ovechkin’s career. Behind Sidney Crosby’s 56 goals, Ovechkin is second with 51 career goals in 77 games against the Flyers. That's tied for the second-most goals Ovechkin has scored against any team.
The Flyers have held Ovechkin scoreless in a season series only twice in his career, the last coming during the 2019-20 season. He actually failed to record a point in four games against Philadelphia that year. The other was 2016-17, during which he had four assists.
In three games this season, Ovechkin has two goals against the Flyers. After scoring in the last matchup between these two teams in February, Ivan Fedotov became the 180th different goaltender that Ovechkin has scored on.
Since returning from a broken leg at the end of December, Ovechkin hasn’t missed a beat. Despite the longest stretch of his career in which he was injured, he sits at 34 goals in 55 games. That is tops on the Capitals even with the 16 missed games.
Since returning on Dec.28, he has scored 19 goals in 34 games. Before the injury, it seemed that Ovechkin would’ve easily broken the record well before the end of the season.
He had 15 goals a little over a month into the season, leading the league in scoring. Ovechkin had a five-game streak in which he scored six goals. Counting the game he suffered the broken leg in, he had five goals in two games. At that pace, he may have easily hit the 50-goal mark without the injury.
Ovechkin has had three different streaks of goals in at least four straight games and has one five-game streak.
He enters Thursday night’s game with two goals in his last five games, but eight in his last 12. It’s rare to see him go a few games without a goal as he’s only had a scoreless streak of three games twice, and one was at the beginning of the season.
He has more multi-goal outings, posting two or more goals five times this season. With 14 games remaining in the season, it could come down to the very last game for Ovechkin to break the record.
And even with a postseason berth well in hand, don’t expect the Capitals to rest Ovechkin. As long as he’s still chasing the record, he will be on the ice.
He won’t break it against Philadelphia, but it’s coming.