The touring caravan is formally hitting the highway with Alex Ovechkin now in attain of breaking the NHL’s all-time document for profession objectives.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and different senior league personnel will probably be in attendance for Wednesday’s Washington Capitals-Carolina Hurricanes sport in Raleigh, N.C., and plan to attend every of Washington’s remaining video games till Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s document.
Gretzky is anticipated to be there, as properly — simply as Gordie Howe was when he handed the baton on March 23, 1994.
Ovechkin is four goals away from breaking Gretzky’s document with eight Capitals video games remaining for him to get purpose No. 895 earlier than the tip of this common season. That features three video games at Capital One Heart, beginning with Friday’s go to by the Chicago Blackhawks, and 5 on the highway.
For the NHL, which has spent months getting ready for the end result of the “Gr8 Chase,” this can be a center-stage second. The league has meticulously mapped out the manufacturing parts that can accompany the record-breaker and tried to plan for each contingency, proper all the way down to the possibility that the goal is subject to a video review challenge.
Amongst these anticipated to soak up the Ovechkin Tour reside are members of the participant’s household, together with his spouse, Nastya, who was at TD Backyard in Boston on Tuesday to see her husband rating profession purpose No. 891, together with a wholesome contingent from the Capitals and the NHL. Former teammate Nicklas Bäckström not too long ago informed reporters he’d be heading out on the highway for any sport the place the document would possibly fall.
“As everyone knows, he can rating a hat trick when he needs,” Bäckström mentioned.
When this season started, there was some skepticism in regards to the chance that Ovechkin, now 39, may rating the 42 objectives wanted for historical past. The probabilities of it taking place appeared significantly much less doubtless when he suffered a fractured left fibula in November that sidelined him for 16 video games.
And but, right here we’re.
“What he’s carried out is outstanding,” Gretzky said in December. “Hear, it’s good for the game, it’s nice for the sport, and hopefully I’m there to shake his hand the evening he breaks the document.”
Simply 9 gamers in NHL historical past have topped the league in profession objectives since 1917.
The three who held that mantle throughout the previous 73 years are every thought of historic legends of the game. The all-time objectives document was claimed by Maurice Richard in 1952 after which handed on to Howe in 1963 and Gretzky in 1994.
On Tuesday, the NHL introduced that ESPN and TNT would every produce an OviCast for all of their remaining Capitals broadcasts. That can function an remoted digicam on Ovechkin alongside the standard sport feed.
In complete, there are anticipated to be a further 10 cameras in every constructing as he chases down the document.
The NHL’s plans embrace permitting the Capitals gamers to clear the bench and have fun with Ovechkin on the ice when he ties the document. When he breaks it, the sport will probably be delayed for a proper celebration and ceremony. That can occur no matter how a lot time is remaining on the clock or how essential the sport is likely to be to the Capitals’ opponent due to the historic significance of this achievement, in response to league sources.
If Ovechkin have been to interrupt the document throughout considered one of his two upcoming video games on the New York Islanders’ UBS Enviornment, for instance, it may trigger an interruption to a sport with direct playoff implications. The Islanders have stumbled of late within the chase for an Jap Convention wild-card spot however stay mathematically alive.
Whereas there’s no indication that the Capitals are going to attempt to time precisely the place and when Ovechkin breaks the document, the NHL has requested for a heads-up if the crew decides to not gown him for a sport down the stretch due to the entire further parts concerned with getting ready for the second.
There’s a historic precedent for that type of transfer.
Hank Aaron was taking part in for the Atlanta Braves when he tied baseball’s all-time house run document in Cincinnati on the opening day of the 1974 season, and he sat out the next sport at Riverfront Stadium earlier than finally hitting the record-setting homer after the Braves returned house for a collection in opposition to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
When Gretzky was chasing down Howe’s document in March 1994, with the person dubbed “Mr. Hockey” and Gretzky’s mother and father, Walter and Phyllis, amongst these following alongside, he didn’t draw out the drama.
Gretzky scored twice in San Jose on March 20 to tug even with Howe earlier than getting the record-setter within the Los Angeles Kings’ subsequent sport on the Nice Western Discussion board in opposition to the Vancouver Canucks on March 23. He had a wide-open internet to shoot at behind Canucks goalie Kirk McLean after taking a cross-ice move from Marty McSorley on the push.
On this present day 27 years in the past, Wayne Gretzky broke the all-time document for objectives scored with 802.
If that looks like so much, it’s as a result of it’s. @GEICO | #GEICORewind pic.twitter.com/RonQcSsmHW
— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 23, 2021
The in-game, on-ice ceremony to commemorate the achievement included Bettman and lasted about quarter-hour.
Whereas Gretzky predicted earlier this season that it’ll be robust for Ovechkin to maintain his feelings in verify because the concentrate on the document intensifies — “He’s human, he’ll get just a little bit nervous close to the tip,” Gretzky mentioned in December — there’s a rising sense of inevitability in regards to the pursuit with Ovechkin not having gone greater than three video games between objectives throughout the whole 2024-25 marketing campaign.
“I believe he’ll get it this 12 months,” former Capitals coach Barry Trotz informed The Athletic not too long ago. “He’s a kind of guys that when he locks onto one thing, he’ll get ‘er carried out. He’s going to most likely have 100 photographs from now till the tip of the season.
“He’s going to shoot the puck so much.”
With loads of eyes watching, too.
(Prime photograph: Patrick Smith / Getty Photographs)
