(You can always edit to add your comments.)

It surprised me because while I believe OV will certainly set career numbers, I really can’t see him besting Gretzky’s mark. Gretzky scored better than 1/3 of his goals in a 4 year run when the Oilers were insanely good. He also put up those numbers in an era where there was no salary cap (so a team could score 446 goals in a season, compared with the 295 mark a high scoring detroit team put up last year).

Gretzky also had the benefit of playing in an NHL where lighting up the league’s superstar meant the refs looked the other way while you got mauled by Marty McSorley. The hope for AO would be that the NHL continues to take steps to make the game higher scoring. That said, I have to imagine his hard hitting style is going to take a toll on his body, one Gretzky never had to endure. While I’d have a blast watching him make a run at the record here at the phone booth, I just don’t see it happening.

I feel he obviously has a chance, but I don’t think it happens.

Well, then you have him having seasons that deviate +20 or +30 goals during his prime from Bucci’s suggestions. That makes the back end easier.

I can’t imagine Ovie playing like he does and scoring like he does well into his late 30s, but it does amaze me to see that he does have a legitimate chance at his current pace.

I agree that he starts to hit his downturn a little earlier than Bucci thinks, but with those numbers he has a lot of leeway. Playing till he is 40 is maybe a stretch and he’ll have to have a lot of good luck with injuries, but those projected totals for each season (while optimistic) are not ridiculous and he still passes the record by over 100 goals. So take off the last three seasons (or as Bucci points out take off 7 goals each season) and he still breaks Gretzky’s record.

When I first saw the question my first reaction was “no way in hell”. But while those numbers are a bit optimistic (they aren’t the best case scenario, but they are close), Bucci does a good job at least showing that it’s not a ridiculous suggestion.

70 is pushing it – I’d love to see it happen, but it’d take a practically perfect season. I can’t see 80 without a dramatic rule change, like expanding the nets or dramatically cutting down on the size of the goalie pads. No one’s gotten 70 since the dead puck era began and the only guys to even break 60 since the Devils knocked off the Wings have been Mario Lemieux and Alex Ovechkin. Each of them has only done it once and Mario did it in ‘96, the year after the Devils won; teams were still figuring out this clutch-n-grab-n-trap combination, on a team that’s even more loaded than this year’s Caps squad.