Alex Ovechkin breaks NHL record for most goalies scored on with 874th career goal – an overtime game-winner against Ottawa’s Leevi Merilainen – Russian Machine Never Breaks
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5 Comments Share:Alex Ovechkin made NHL history in the Washington Capitals’ 1-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. And Ovi did it in the only way he knows how: when the lights are brightest.Ovechkin beat Senators goaltender Leevi Merilainen 3:07 in overtime for career goal number 874. With the tally, Ovechkin broke Jaromir Jagr’s record for the most goalies scored on in NHL history as Merilainen was the 179th different netminder Ovechkin has found paydirt on. The goal was also Ovechkin’s 27th career overtime game-winner, the most of all time.So to summarize: Ovi broke an NHL record by extending a different one. We’re living in historic times.Ovechkin scored after the Capitals lost a faceoff in the offensive zone and things looked dire. With the game tied 0-0 in sudden death, the Senators’ Jake Sanderson raced past Ovechkin, going down to the Capitals end on an odd-man rush. As Sanderson looked to make a play, Capitals defenseman Rasmus Sandin stole the puck, springing the Capitals on a two-on-one.Sandin then dished to Ovi and with a rolling puck, The Great 8 rifled a shot past Merilainen top shelf. Ovechkin’s game-winner came 19 years to the day of him scoring The Goal on January 16, 2005 against the Phoenix Coyotes. A small slice of fans at Canadian Tire Centre could be heard chanting “Ovi!” as the Capitals’ captain celebrated with his teammates.“Obviously, just try to carry it up in the zone and give it to O,” Sandin said. “Usually good things can happen.”“I knew I should take a shot as soon as I can because I thought like he may be thinking maybe I will pass it back to Sandy,” Ovechkin said. “It was a good one, and it went in, so I’ll take it.”The Sens’ Finnish netminder kept the Capitals completely off the board in regulation, but called the Ovechkin overtime goal a disappointing end. “Oh, you have to know when he’s on the ice,” Merilainen said of Ovi. “He’s gonna shoot everything like he did today. And yeah.”During his 20-year run in the NHL, Ovechkin has scored on five different Hockey Hall of Fame goaltenders who won six Stanley Cups combined — Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, and Ed Belfour. Ovi’s also dented the twine against 15 of his past or current Capitals teammates including Lundqvist, Cristobal Huet, Craig Anderson, Tomas Vokoun, Olaf Kolzig, Jaroslav Halak, Brent Johnson, Jose Theodore, Justin Peters, Semyon Varlamov, Darcy Kuemper, Philipp Grubauer, Logan Thompson, Pheonix Copley, and Ilya Samsonov. Ovi’s netted goals against a father and son goaltending pair — though the dad was beat when Ovi played in the Russian Super League. The goaltender Ovechkin’s terrorized the most is future first ballot Hall of Famer, Marc-Andre Fleury. Ovechkin, in likely his final game against MAF, beat the former first overall pick for the 28th time in a Capitals’ 4-3 shootout loss. Ovechkin has also scored on 11 of the same goaltenders Gretzky scored against. Incredibly, as of March 31, 2023, there were only 23 goalies who faced an Ovechkin shot and had not given up a goal to him.“It’s pretty cool,” Ovechkin said of the record. “When you play 20 years, if you have chances to, you’ll take it.”There have been 179 goaltenders in the NHL that can say they’ve been scored on by this man #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/ySZOwKkZIS— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 17, 2025Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery flashed a big grin and seemed in disbelief upon learning about how many goalies Ovechkin’s beaten.“We’re going to be able to — just the accolades and the different parts of this record are going to just be about a 10 page essay on this,” Carbery said. “So most goalies, yeah, I mean it’s not surprising, he’s got empty netters, you just continue to check boxes on what his remarkable career and scoring on different guys and in different buildings and against every team — it’s remarkable what he’s doing.”Ovechkin is now 20 goals away from Gretzky for a share of the NHL goals record of 894 and 21 to own the record by himself.With his 21st goal in 29 games, Ovechkin is on pace to score 48 goals this season and break Gretzky’s record near close to season’s end. At his current 0.724 goals-per-game average, Ovechkin would tie Gretkzy at 894 on March 30 vs Buffalo and score no. 895 on April 1 at Boston.View from 114, row A! pic.twitter.com/cgN8IwIZpv— James T Paterson (@jtpaterson) January 17, 2025“We’re lucky we have him,” Sandin concluded.
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Donovan Sebrango on making NHL debut against Alex Ovechkin: ‘Growing up, that’s my favorite player. It was a great honor.’ RMNB is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International – unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
