At 39 years old, Alexander Ovechkin is looking to make history this season. He is on an improbable mission to pass Wayne Gretzky in all-time regular season goals. After a down year last season, Ovechkin has managed to turn back the clock, even coming back from an injury early in hopes of breaking the record this year. Nobody truly knows when/if he will break the record this season, but a general time frame can be determined using past stats and a little bit of help from Datadrivenhockey.
With 24 games left in the NHL regular season, Ovechkin has managed to cut the gap between him and Gretzky to just 11. This would mean that if Ovi scores the golden 12th goal, he would take sole possession of the record. That makes the math pretty easy, as he will need to score .5 goals per game through the final 24 games. For one of history’s greatest goal-scorers, this is more than feasible.
Ovi has dialed it up to ten this season. In 42 games he has surmounted 30 goals. This is good for .71 goals per game, which is well above his career average of .6 goals per game. Looking solely at this season’s numbers, the Russian will break the goal record on April 4 at home against the Chicago Blackhawks. This leaves Ovi with six games to spare to make up for any potential lost ground. While breaking the record where it all began would be an amazing story, other factors can contribute to when Ovechkin could break this infamous record.
The final 24 games of this season will be some of the most important in Ovechkin’s career. Taking a look at his previous years in that span you see a pattern start to form. Going back to the 2021-2022 season, Ovi potted 18 goals in his final 24 games. In the 2022-2023 season, he only scored 11 in 24, which would still be good enough to tie the Great One. In his most recent season, Ovechkin managed to score 15 goals during the final stretch. What’s crazy about this is that Ovi only had 31 goals on the season, meaning he scored almost half his goals in his last 24 games.
This means that on average, in the past three seasons, Ovi has .61 goals per game. This is consistent with his career average of .6 goals per game and would be good enough to break Gretzky’s record this season. Purely based on stats, as long as Ovechkin doesn’t get injured during this period, he should break the record this season. With the record in sight, join FanDuel to bet on Ovi’s anytime goals, and the Caps this season!
I was able to reach out to @datadrivenhockey on Instagram, and he was kind enough to send over what his expertly polished model believed. According to his model GPM2, Ovechkin stands to have a 46.1% chance at breaking the all-time goals record this season. GPM2 was also able to determine which game Ovi is most likely to break the record. The model came back with the Capitals’ April 15 games versus the New York Islanders. This is the Caps’ second to last game of the season, which doesn’t give the Russian a whole lot of leeway.
GPM2 is not nearly as confident that Ovechkin will break the record as the raw stats are. While Ovi’s career stats would indicate a higher chance of making history, the GPM2 model is based on thousands of calculations and probabilities, making it much more accurate in theory.
The GPM2 model is designed to predict all sorts of hockey statistics and outcomes. Datadrivenhockey does a fantastic job of explaining it in detail on his podcast, but this is the simplified version. The model is built on how a hockey game truly happens, with all sorts of small actions that could change the game and scoring outcomes. One key use of the GPM2 model is that it can calculate an estimate of how many points any given player will score. It all starts by simulating 10,000 games.
The model does this by starting with calculating how much a player will be utilized in a game. This includes line combinations and average ice time. Then, based on past player stats, it can be determined who scored the goal during any of the simulation games. Things that are factored into this can be opposing team defense and goaltending. Empty net goals are also included, providing that the simulated game had a 1-2 goal spread. Once those games are simulated, the likelihood of a player scoring a goal can be determined by how many times he scored out of the 10,000 games. This is how Ovechkin’s goal chase is calculated by the GPM2 model.
Alex Ovechkin has seven empty net goals this season. This number has ruffled some fans’ feathers, as they argue that they aren’t real goals and shouldn’t count. All time, Ovechkin has 64 empty net goals, compare that to Gretzky’s 56, and all of a sudden the difference isn’t as apparent. Yes, Ovi is probably getting more ice time while the opposing goalie is pulled, but who wouldn’t put the guy who’s on the brink of history out there?
With Ovechkin being force-fed the puck in empty-net situations, the GPM2 model was tweaked. Datadrivenhockey increased the probability of Ovi scoring an empty net goal to 55%. This is likely due to the fact that Ovechkin currently has half of the Caps’ empty net goals. An interesting takeaway from this tweak is that it shot his probability of breaking the record from 31% to 46.1%.
Purely looking at the raw stats, Ovi is predicted to break the record this season. As previously stated, based on this season’s numbers, he will break the record on April 4 with six games to spare. If his career numbers or final 24-game stats were used, he would break the record on April 10 against the Hurricanes. If for whatever reason Ovi only scored at .5 goals per game for the rest of the season, he would still beat the record on the last game of the season. This should give people a ballpark of when Ovechkin might make history.
The GPM2 model isn’t as high on Ovi’s odds. The model predicts that the best chance Ovi has to break the record is in the Capitals’ final four games. Those games are on April 12, April 13, April 15, and April 17. This doesn’t even include the fact that the model gives Ovechkin less than a 50% chance of even breaking the record this season.
It’s impossible to know the exact game that Ovechkin will break the record. However, using stats and models, a rough time frame can be laid out. Factoring in both of these, my prediction is that Ovechkin will break the record on April 13 at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Once again, I would love to give a big thank you to Datadrivenhockey for providing and allowing me to use his model GPM2. His Instagram is jam-packed with great content utilizing different models and potential outcomes.
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