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

Alex Ovechkin

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

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2005-06	WSH	81	52	54	106	+2	52	21	3	5	425	12.2	21:37
2006-07	WSH	82	46	46	92	-19	52	16	0	8	392	11.7	21:23
2007-08	WSH	82	65	47	112	+28	40	22	0	11	446	14.6	23:06
2008-09	WSH	79	56	54	110	+8	72	19	1	10	528	10.6	23:00
2009-10	WSH	72	50	59	109	+45	89	13	0	7	368	13.6	21:48
2010-11	WSH	79	32	53	85	+24	41	7	0	11	367	8.7	21:22
2011-12	WSH	78	38	27	65	-8	26	13	0	3	303	12.5	19:48
2012-13	WSH	48	32	24	56	+2	36	16	0	4	220	14.5	20:53
2013-14	WSH	78	51	28	79	-35	48	24	0	10	386	13.2	20:33
2014-15	WSH	81	53	28	81	+10	58	25	0	11	395	13.4	20:20
2015-16	WSH	79	50	21	71	+21	53	19	0	8	398	12.6	20:19
2016-17	WSH	82	33	36	69	+6	50	17	0	7	313	10.5	18:22
2017-18	WSH	82	49	38	87	+3	32	17	0	7	355	13.8	20:09
2018-19	WSH	81	51	38	89	+7	40	18	0	5	338	15.1	20:55
2019-20	WSH	68	48	19	67	-12	30	13	0	3	311	15.4	20:40
2020-21	WSH	45	24	18	42	-7	12	9	0	6	182	13.2	19:30
2021-22	WSH	77	50	40	90	+8	18	16	1	5	334	15.0	20:34
2022-23	WSH	73	42	33	75	-16	48	14	0	3	294	14.3	20:12
2023-24	WSH	79	31	34	65	-22	20	13	0	5	272	11.4	19:13
2024-25	WSH	65	44	29	73	+15	14	14	0	7	237	18.6	17:43
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1491	897	726	1623	+60	831	326	5	136	6864	13.1	20:37

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.

45.1 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 48-32 against an expectation of 33.81-41.12.

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.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
39.8% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
12 of 137 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 8.8%, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
79% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**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.”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“He finishes checks that hurt and he protects the puck on the wall by being immovable rather than by being quick.”
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“He finishes checks that hurt and he protects the puck on the wall by being immovable rather than by being quick.”
takes-libertieshe lacks it· crosses the line and knows where it is
“The hitting has never been the fouling; he takes the body and he does not cross the line.”
playmakerhe lacks it· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“29 assists. The passing has never been the point.”
net-fronthe lacks it· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“**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.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“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: 45.1%; 17th pct
Shot attempts: 48.2%; 35th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 48 for, 32 against. Expected: 33.8 and 41.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

96th

Numbers

17th

The report ranks him 79 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 65 games

Top speed: 22.0 mph; 38th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.25 a game
Distance: 2.62 miles a game
Hardest shot: 99.0 mph; 99th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

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 45.1% — 5.7 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

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Dylan Strome	45.2%	44.7%	49.0%
Aliaksei Protas	48.0%	42.7%	56.2%
Jakob Chychrun	41.3%	47.5%	51.3%

45.2% together, 44.7% for him apart and 49.0% 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.