Alex Ovechkin can still catch Wayne Gretzky, but it's far from a sure thing

In 29 games thus far, Ovechkin has only scored five goals, putting him at 827 for his career and 67 back of Gretzky. As of Thursday afternoon, he has not scored in 14 consecutive games, the longest drought of his career.

This is highly concerning. Throughout his entire career, the fewest goals Ovechkin has ever scored in a season was 24 during the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 campaign, in which he only played 45 games. Last season he netted 42 goals, showing no signs of slowing down.

Simply put, the dropoff has been sudden and shocking and Ovechkin's age (38) indicates he's probably only going to decline even further from here. His contract currently runs through the end of the 2025-26 season, so it can be approximated that that may be when he steps away from the game. This means in order to break the record, he would need to average 24 goals per season for the next three seasons, including this one.

He's currently not doing that. His pace this season has him on track for only 15 goals and should one extrapolate into the future, it would take him more than four more years to catch Gretzky – by which point he'd be 42 and likely done playing hockey.

That being said, there's reason to believe Ovechkin can return to form. He hasn't been scoring this season, but he's still been putting plenty of shots on net, as his 109 attempts leads the Capitals. His 4.6 shooting percentage is unsustainably low and his expected goals scored of 11.2 backs up the idea that he has simply been drastically unlucky.

If he can find some positive regression with his puck luck, Ovechkin should still be expected to score between roughly 25 and 30 goals this season. Considering that number will continue to drop with age, though, the margin for error is still razor thin.

Throughout his career, Ovechkin has been an indestructible goal-scoring machine. Given that goalie play is at a much higher level today than it was during Gretzky's era and that Ovechkin has lost what amounts to two full seasons' worth of games during his career due to lockouts and COVID-19, he is the best scorer that the game of hockey has ever seen.

In order to earn that official title, though, he'll need to reclaim the upper hand in his toughest battle of all: the one against the clock.