We don’t know whether this will be Alex Ovechkin’s final season as a Washington Capital or not, but there’s never a bad time to reflect back on two decades of being treated to this amazing talent. So each game day throughout the 2025-26 season, we’re going to be picking an Ovechkin moment to remember against that day’s opponent as we look back at an incredible career.
#802 to Pass Gordie Howe – December 23, 2022
On December 13, 2022, Alex Ovechkin scored a hat trick against the Chicago Blackhawks to give him Goal #798, 799, and 800 in his career – and putting him just one shy of tying Gordie Howe for second on the all-time goals list. 10 days and five games later, he was still sitting at 800, tantalizingly close to that next rung up the ladder. With the Winnipeg Jets in town, the stage was set for him to do just that.
He didn’t make fans wait too long for 801, taking a lovely drop pass from Dylan Strome at the line and firing off a snap shot in the final two minutes of the opening frame. It was his 21st of the season, added goalie David Rittich to his ever-expanding list of goalies he’s scored on in his career:
801 secured, now it was a question of when he would get #802 to take over sole possession of that second spot on the goal-scoring list. And as we’ve seen (and as he proved when he hit 800), Ovechkin tends to score in bunches when running up to a milestone – so did he have another one in him on this night?
Well, he did…but perhaps not the way he’d wanted.
Late in regulation, with the Caps up 3-1, the Jets pulled Rittich for the extra attacker. The crowd went nuts as Alex Ovechkin carried the puck into the offensive zone, just a single Winnipeg defender between him and the empty net, between him and history – a shot he’s taken many times over the years. Instead, he chose to pass to Evgeny Kuznetsov, seemingly bypassing that empty-netter.
Rather than taking an even easier shot, however, Kuznetsov made the kind of drop pass back toward Ovechkin that, had the Caps not been up by two and Ovechkin perched on the edge of history, would have made all of us tear our collective hair out because it was a HORRIBLE choice. He wasn’t about to let Ovechkin off the hook, though, so the captain grudgingly took the shot, scored the goal, and had a notably subdued celebration before being mobbed by his teammates:
After the game, both Russians spoke about the special moment:
“It’s the kind of situation where if you have a chance to take it, you take it,” Ovechkin said. “I give it to Kuzy, and he’s like, ‘I don’t want to take it.’ But after that, it’s special.”
Kuznetsov said: “I’ll feel probably bad if I score over there and half of the world probably will be so mad at me. You know, I do have a lot of haters … the reputation, whatever.”
802 down. Second place locked. And as Joe Beninati so perfectly put it…one great hill left to climb.