Alex Ovechkin is forty years old, but he plays like he refuses to slow down. He is already the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer. His job is simple. Keep scoring. And he did exactly that on Thursday night.
The Capitals faced the Montreal Canadiens, and Ovechkin turned back the clock with a hat trick. By doing it, he became the oldest player ever to score a hat trick against the Canadiens. Sportsnet shared the stat. Ovechkin did it at forty years and sixty four days. The old record belonged to Jean Ratelle, who did it at thirty eight years and two hundred twelve days in nineteen seventy nine. Ovechkin didn’t just break it. He crushed it.
He is almost scoring a point per game this season. He has played twenty one games. He already has ten goals and ten assists. His career numbers are even more unreal. He now has nine hundred seven goals. He also has seven hundred thirty six assists. That gives him one thousand six hundred forty three points in one thousand five hundred twelve games.
Ovechkin is heating up again. He has scored in four straight games. He had one goal on November fifteen. One on the seventeenth. One on the nineteenth. And then the hat trick on the twentieth. The Capitals have won their last three games while Ovechkin has been rolling.
He is not playing as many minutes as he did in his prime. But the Capitals make sure he gets plenty of chances in the offensive zone. And he is making the most of them. He took only three shots on Thursday. All three went in.
It looks like his all-time goals record will keep growing for a while. Ovechkin keeps showing that he still knows exactly how to put the puck in the net.