What if we told you that the second half of Alex Ovechkin’s career to date has been just as good from a goal-scoring perspective (and a lot better in other respects) than the first half? Because that’s what we’re telling you.
No one is a stranger to the goal scoring consistency Ovechkin has demonstrated to his career, but let’s just take a quick glimpse at how those totals have matured over the years.
It’s a steady crawl up the y-axis, rarely flagging, and far beyond the expected point of diminishing returns for NHL goal scorers. And that gets at the crux of what might be most impressive about this shining light of consistency: the Great Eight’s evident immunity to the effects of age on goal-scoring ability. Sure, those 65 and 56-goal campaigns came early in Ovi’s career, but widening the lens here can do wonders for demonstrating just how remarkable Ovechkin’s career has been to date.
To wit, tonight when he laces up against the Carolina Hurricanes in search of his eighth 50 goal campaign, Ovi will be participating in his 1080th (!) game. So 1079 games played in his career gives us a dividing line with 540 games on one side of it, and 539 games on the other. Ovechkin potted 328 goals in his first 540 games. How many has he scored in the 539 that have come since? You guessed it: 328. That’s just preposterous.
Put another way, after tonight Alex Ovechkin will have at least as many goals in the second half of his career as he scored in the first half of his career. That’s almost literally unbelievable. Here’s a look at how those two segments have looked.
Here’s to the next 540 and 328, Ovi, which when it comes to the NHL’s all time goal scoring leaders would put him…well, you can do the math.
(h/t J.P. for digging up this bananas ass stat in the first place.)