Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

8

Alex Ovechkin

Washington Capitals Left Wing

Eight hundred and ninety-seven goals, forty-four of them last season at 39, and a broken fibula in the middle of it.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2005-06WSH815254106+252213542512.221:37
2006-07WSH82464692-1952160839211.721:23
2007-08WSH826547112+28402201144614.623:06
2008-09WSH795654110+8721911052810.623:00
2009-10WSH725059109+4589130736813.621:48
2010-11WSH79325385+244170113678.721:22
2011-12WSH78382765-826130330312.519:48
2012-13WSH48322456+236160422014.520:53
2013-14WSH78512879-35482401038613.220:33
2014-15WSH81532881+10582501139513.420:20
2015-16WSH79502171+2153190839812.620:19
2016-17WSH82333669+650170731310.518:22
2017-18WSH82493887+332170735513.820:09
2018-19WSH81513889+740180533815.120:55
2019-20WSH68481967-1230130331115.420:40
2020-21WSH45241842-71290618213.219:30
2021-22WSH77504090+818161533415.020:34
2022-23WSH73423375-1648140329414.320:12
2023-24WSH79313465-2220130527211.419:13
2024-25WSH65442973+1514140723718.617:43
2025-26 so far
Career14918977261623+608313265136686413.120:37

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

44 goals and 29 assists in 65 games — 73 points at 17:43 a night, plus-15, with 14 power-play goals and 7 game-winners on 237 shots, converting at 18.6 per cent, and 14 penalty minutes.

He broke his left fibula in November and missed sixteen games, and returned scoring faster than he had before it. On the sixth of April he scored his 895th goal and passed Wayne Gretzky, a record that had stood for twenty-six years and that nobody in the sport believed would fall.

45.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 15th percentile — the worst mark of any regular on the roster. His ice went 36-31 against an expectation of 33.25-40.10.

The Finesse Game

237 attempts at a median of 37 feet with 40 per cent from beyond 40 and 21 per cent from inside 20 — by a distance the most perimeter shot profile of any scorer in this edition — converting at 18.6 per cent.

That combination should not exist. Nobody else in hockey shoots from that far out that often and scores on nearly one in five. The release from the left circle is the single most identifiable skill in the sport and it has now produced 897 goals; a goaltender knows exactly where it is coming from and it does not help.

29 assists. The passing has never been the point.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 238 and he is among the heaviest forwards in the league. He finishes checks that hurt and he protects the puck on the wall by being immovable rather than by being quick.

14 penalty minutes in 65 games, and 831 in 1,491 career games. The hitting has never been the fouling; he takes the body and he does not cross the line.

The Intangibles

First overall in 2004 and 1,491 games and 1,623 points, all of it in one uniform, with a Stanley Cup and a Conn Smythe in 2018 and now the all-time goal-scoring record.

He is 40. He is the last of a kind of player — a shooter who signed a thirteen-year contract in one city and spent two decades scoring the same goal from the same spot — and there is one season left on the deal.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 824 minutes

Expected goals
45.3%
15th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.1%
33rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 36 for, 31 against. Expected: 33.3 and 40.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
96th
Numbers
15th

The report ranks him 81 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 83 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 824 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
WSH took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.3% — 5.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 824 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Dylan Strome45.3%45.3%50.1%
Aliaksei Protas48.5%42.8%54.7%
Jakob Chychrun41.7%47.7%51.6%

45.3% together, 45.3% for him apart and 50.1% for Strome apart. Strome was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

344 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 42 of them goals. His median goal came from 32 feet. 22% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 40% from beyond forty.