Alex Ovechkin’s historic goal-scoring achievement (you may have heard about it) is the product of two critical and career-defining characteristics of the Great Eight: ability and longevity. Take Ovechkin’s goal-scoring prowess without his durability and consistency and you end up with something like Mike Bossy-plus; take his two decades of nearly uninterrupted availability with a merely “good” finishing talent and you have, perhaps, Patrick Marleau. But combine his skill and ledger of games played and you get, well, the “greatest goal-scorer” (ability) “of all-time” (longevity).
Ovechkin is as sure a first-ballot Hall of Famer as has ever existed in professional sports, but in the lead up to and wake of him breaking that unbreakable mark, a question arose: Has Alex Ovechkin actually had two Hall of Fame careers? For an answer to that question, we sought out one of the hockey world’s foremost experts on Hall of Fame resumes, Paul Pidutti (AdjustedHockey on Twitter). His answer probably won’t surprise you. In an article entitled “Five reasons Alex Ovechkin is way better at scoring goals than you think,” Pidutti makes the case… and it’s a slam dunk:
Second-Half Ovechkin: an NHL-best 420 goals in the decade; four Rockets; a Conn Smythe as Cup-winning captain; a relentless physical force. That would make him a Hall of Famer. By PPS, my Hall of Fame metric, First-Half Ovechkin scores 315 and Second-Half Ovechkin scores 245. The Hall standard for modern forwards is 219, so he easily clears the bar.
In fact, his first decade alone would make him the 19th-best forward of all-time between Messier and Bobby Hull. His last 10 seasons? The 72nd-best forward ever, tied with Paul Kariya.
The rest of the article is very much worth the read, so do click through and be careful not to let your jaw hit the floor. The bottom line here is that Alex Ovechkin at 39 isn’t the same player as Alex Ovechkin at 20 or 29… but they’re all Hall of Famers with hilariously impressive stats, no matter how you dice it.