2 weeks Ago By Joe Yerdon
The magic of the NHL comes in wins, the Stanley Cup and the awards at the end of the season, but there are in-season accomplishments that merit recognition as well. Players hitting milestone numbers gives us the chance to reflect on how incredible their careers have been and continue to be. We've seen Evgeni Malkin score his 500th goal this year and Sidney Crosby earn his 1,600th point in the same game.
We also watched Sergei Bobrovsky become the fastest player to reach 400 wins in NHL history last week, and that's a historic moment considering only 13 other goalies even won 400 games in their career. But those players likely won't be the only ones to record their own history this season. Heck, some of them might have a few different major career moments this season, and we're here to share some of those markers and players (and coaches) who could have a reason to celebrate their accomplishments this season.
We saw Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby already cross the 1,600-points barrier this season and we also watched him assist on Evgeni Malkin's 500th career goal, but he's very close to eclipsing 600 goals himself. As of writing, Crosby sits at 593 career goals, which puts him 21st of all time. For those who have been around long enough to remember when "Sid the Kid" took the NHL by storm alongside Alex Ovechkin in 2005, watching them continue to soar up the all-time lists is both unsurprising and breathtaking.
Crosby, 37, has but one goal this season, but the chances of him hitting 600 this season are seemingly inevitable as long as he stays healthy. He scored 42 goals last season, 33 the year before, and 31 the year before that. Sure, the Penguins haven't looked great early on, but we all know Crosby will have 600 in no time when the goal dam bursts.
He'll only need to hit 601 to tie Jari Kurri for 20th of all time, 608 to tie Dino Ciccarelli for 19th and 610 to tie Bobby Hull. Beyond that, Jarome Iginla and Joe Sakic have 625 before Dave Andreychuk in 15th place with 640. After Sergei Bobrovsky notched his 400th career win on Thursday night, New York Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick is right on his heels.
As of writing, Quick has 395 wins. He has already accomplished a ton in his career as a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Los Angeles Kings and a Conn Smythe Trophy winner in 2012. The 38-year-old surpassed Ryan Miller as the winningest American goalie in NHL history late last season, and each win from here pads that out.
Being this close to 400 wins also gives Quick the chance to move up the all-time victories. While he and Bobrovsky are still going, Chris Osgood (401), Grant Fuhr (403) and Glenn Hall (407) are just ahead of them with the latter sitting 11th of all time. With that kind of track record, you'd have to imagine Quick's case to reach the Hockey Hall of Fame is strong.
Although he's never won the Vezina, he has won the Jennings Trophy (given to goalies with at least 25 games played for a team and fewest goals allowed) twice. Milestones come in a variety of forms and it's not just players who can reach them. Coaches can too, and Florida's Paul Maurice and Buffalo's Lindy Ruff both have a chance to reach 900 career wins this year.
Winning that many games in the NHL requires not just longevity, but also a sustained ability to coach players and teams up to the point to have consistent success. Only three NHL coaches in history have won 900 or more games: Scotty Bowman, Joel Quenneville and Barry Trotz. The fact that both Maurice and Ruff could join them this season is jaw-dropping considering the company they'll keep once they do.
As of writing, Maurice is 25 wins away with 875 and Ruff is 32 away with 868 and one of them will be one win closer to 900 after the Panthers and Sabres face off Monday night in Buffalo. After seeing Maurice win the Stanley Cup with Florida last season, Ruff will attempt to get the Sabres back to a Final for the first time since he coached them to their last appearance in 1999 and maybe, finally, be able to lift the trophy himself. Imagine that story.
Think about how many seasons it takes to reach that kind of milestone and how physically demanding hockey is and then think about how those have to work in concert with each other to be able to reach a mark like 1,500 games played. That's what Ryan Suter and Alex Ovechkin can accomplish this season. Suter, currently in his 20th NHL season, 13 times he's played every game in a season (including three shortened seasons; one lockout, two pandemic-shortened) and in six other seasons he played 70 or more games.
He's played in every game this season so far for the St. Louis Blues as well. With 47 games left to hit the mark (as of right now), it seems like it's only a matter of time.
Ovechkin is the reason why there's a long-running Washington Capitals blog called "Russian Machine Never Breaks," and it's because, well, he's almost never out of the lineup. Only a couple of seasons ago was there a seeming crack in the armor when Ovechkin missed nine games dealing with an ailment, and even still, he scored 42 goals that season. The most games he missed in a season was 11 in the shortened 2020-2021 season and his previous high was 10 back in 2009-2010.
He will need 67 more games this season to hit the mark. Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin have been tied together for nearly 20 years now in the NHL and for a lot of very good reasons. They're two of the greatest players of their generation and they gave hockey a bit of a taste of what the NBA had in the 1980s with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson with a rivalry between two all-time greats throughout their prime.
After Crosby netted his 1,600th point earlier this season, it only made sense that Ovechkin would be right behind him on the all-time list. Although Crosby's got a bit of a lead on Ovechkin, as of right now, "The Great Eight" will need 45 more points to join "Sid the Kid" in the 1,600-point club. Crosby did a lot of his point scoring via assists while Ovechkin has been busy piling up goals like a madman.
That's not to say Crosby hasn't done that too, he most certainly has, but Ovechkin's main role in Washington throughout his career has been to crush slap shots and score goals by the truckload. Locking down 45 more points shouldn't be too much of a challenge especially when he's got another, much larger, target in his sights..
. While we talked about Sergei Bobrovsky and Jonathan Quick attaining and going for the 400 wins mark, there are four goalies this season who could hit the 300 wins plateau this season. Carolina Hurricanes' Frederik Andersen (298), Tampa Bay Lightning's Andrei Vasilevskiy (297), New York Islanders' Semyon Varlamov (287) and the Winnipeg Jets' Connor Hellebuyck (281) are all well within striking range of hitting (and surpassing) 300 wins this season.
Only 39 goalies in NHL history have won 300-or-more games in their careers so this isn't exactly an easy mark to hit, we're just at a very peculiar moment in time in the NHL to have four goalies right there ready to add their names to the list. All four goalies are highly accomplished with Vasilevskiy having won two Stanley Cups (including the Conn Smythe in 2021) and the Vezina in 2019 and Hellebuyck winning the Vezina twice in 2020 and 2024. Andersen's dealt with injuries throughout his career in Anaheim, Toronto and Carolina, and him reaching 300 would be an incredible personal achievement.
Varlamov's career between Washington, Colorado and on Long Island has seen him remain steady and solid throughout it. It's only a short matter of time before Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid reaches 1,000 career points. As of this writing, McDavid has 992 points, eight shy of the mark and with the way he's able to pile up points, he could reach 1,000 by the end of the week.
Ever since McDavid landed in Edmonton, he's been compared to Wayne Gretzky, naturally, but if you're into spooky coincidences (and hey, it's Halloween this week so why not, right?), we've got a great one to share. There are 98 players who have reached the 1,000-point mark in NHL history and provided McDavid is the next player to hit that mark he would become the 99th player to do it. You know, 99 like Gretzky, the guy who helped the Oilers win four Stanley Cups in the 1980s.
McDavid isn't the only guy within range of 1,000 points, however. Boston Bruins captain Brad Marchand is 65 points away and Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche is 88 points away from the mark with Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn 89 points away. Of all the milestones that all the great players and coaches across the NHL can reach this season, nothing has more of our attention than Alex Ovechkin's pursuit of Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal scoring record.
Gretzky's 894 goals has seemed like it would be one of the most untouchable of the many league records he holds. After all, the firewagon hockey era in the 1980s and early 90s had prolific scoring and less-than dazzling goaltending. But when things flipped in the mid-90s through the mid-2000s and goals came at a premium, it felt like fait accompli that 894 would stand forever.
And yet, here's Ovechkin sitting (as of this writing) with 855 goals and fresh off of a "down" season in which he scored "only" 31 times. Like last season, he's off to a bit of a slower start with two goals, but the fact he's 39 goals shy of tying Gretzky and 40 away from surpassing him, it's a record that, given Ovechkin's prolific history of goal scoring, seems very much in reach this season. What's amazing is Gretzky scored 894 in 1,487 games and Ovechkin has 855 through 1,433.
Gretzky retired at age 38 in 1999, and Ovechkin turned 39 in September. The parallels are wild, and it is head-spinning to see him this close to breaking what was thought to be an unbreakable record..
