A funny thing happened after the new year: Ovechkin got good again. Or at least started scoring goals, finishing with 31 on the year. Then the notoriously slow starter came out of the gates hot this season, and here we are: 39 years old, almost totally greyed, and now tied for the league lead in goals after a hat trick in Sunday's 5-2 Caps win in Las Vegas.
If you'd asked me 20 years ago, I would have said confidently that Wayne Gretzky's NHL record of 894 career goals was unbreakable. It was a curio to be admired, not a number to be chased; like Cy Young's 511 wins, it came from a different era, almost a different sport entirely.
I'll extend myself some forgiveness for thinking it was over, that guys pushing 40 don't tend to have slumps, or at least not slumps that end. I would have done well to recall Ovechkin's quote from more than a decade ago, a sign that he probably stresses the least of anyone over his goalscoring droughts.
The only way Gretzky was ever going to be caught was by a greatness sustained beyond the plausible, and if winning an unprecedented nine Rocket Richard Trophies put Ovechkin in position, competing for a 10th is attainable.
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