Is this really that big of a deal? For me this is like Emmet Smith being the rushing leader (and Frank Gore being third). I think gretzky and ovechkin's numbers are close but I'm not sure that means a whole lot.

It's a big deal. No one thought anyone would ever break the goals or points records. Gretzky is still uncatchable in points, but with pre-1998 NHL record-keeping being what it was, it's possible a third of his assists were just made up.

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Ovechkin wasn't in a Nickelback video

In all seriousness I almost never think of Ovechkin even within his time as being great great if that makes sense.

Yeah, he was always second to Crosby because the Penguins built better teams around him than the Crapitals built around Ovechkin. I remember that year they had Adam Oates coaching the team and all he did was bitch about the way guys laced their skates, or the year they won the Presidents' Trophy and then got bounced by an 8-seed Habs team that was just Carey Price and duct tape. Also, he was proudly Russian and not exactly anti-Putin long before the war in Ukraine, which kind of kept him at arm's length during a good deal of his prime in the early '10s. But he was always great, and a better pure scorer than Secondary Sid.

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Longevity is a big part of the greatness of athletes. Also, he is playing in an era where goals are much harder to come by. It is impressive. He looked really old last night…

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Only took him 7 more games than Gretzky to score that many goals.

?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

That is Gretzky’s total games played number. He scored his last goal several games before.

God, those Oilers teams were amazing. I think I saw many of the games in college, since they weren't really on tv back then.

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BC !! Good to see you .

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I never thought anyone would chase Gretzky’s number down. It’s as impressive as hell that he did it and will break the record especially in the offensive hockey starved times that he played a lot of his career in but he just doesn’t have the same cachet as being the record holder as Gretzky does.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

One of the unfortunate side effects of the political moment is that a lot of fans will be quick to say that Gretzky was never really that good anyway because he supports the Republicans. (And yes, I realize my hypocrisy in suggesting that many of his assists may have been fabricated, but I'm not the pro sports league that took a vibes-based approach to statistics for 80 years.) There have always been the contrarians who said Lemieux and Orr were better, maybe even some Gordie Howe holdouts, but there's going to be some major trashing of Gretzky's legacy, and that sucks.

As for adjusting for eras, let's not forget that Ovechkin started his career off in the "new NHL" where they overcorrected and called penalties on any incidental contact, and that Gretzky ended his career in the Dead Puck Era. However, '80s goaltending was notoriously shaky, and the lack of a salary floor led to some historically awful teams. With the balanced schedule, even the Kings could beat up on the new-depths-of-bad Nordiques four times a year.

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Tell me when he is in the greatest sports based cartoon of all time.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Taking nothing away from Ovechkin and the record he now holds.
Maybe they failed to build a good team around him...I always thought he was more of a stat-focused and selfish player.

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Fair to say a little of both. The Controller Disconnected gif will live in history right next to the goal record. But there were some pretty flimsy Caps teams at the same time the Penguins were going to back-to-back Finals. Some of that was Ovechkin being selfish and lazy (which I think people were all too happy to pin on him just for being Russian), but it was also weakness on the blue line and Boudreau's "I dunno do stuff" coaching philosophy.

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