Alex Ovechkin’s great start to the 2025-26 season already has people talking about the next big goal milestone in his legendary career. After a slow start, the 40-year-old winger scored his 900th goal against the St. Louis Blues on November 5 and has added 11 more goals in 17 games since then, which is an over 52-goal pace in 82 games.
Ovechkin’s return to form gives him 14 total goals this season and 911 in his career. Given how he has only picked up his goal-scoring pace as the season has progressed, Ovechkin is already being asked if he believes reaching the 1,000-goal milestone would be possible and if it’s something he would even like to try to accomplish.
“I just play and enjoy the game,” Ovechkin told RG’s Andrew Knoll when asked about the milestone in a recent exclusive interview.
Ovechkin is currently on pace to finish the season with 38 goals, which would leave him with 935 career goals. The Washington Capitals captain is not signed to a contract past this season and has previously said he has no intention to talk about his future until the year is done.
To score 1,000 career goals, Ovechkin would likely need to play at least two more seasons in the NHL, averaging 32.5 goals across those two seasons. Any talk of Ovechkin’s future must also include his stated desire to finish his playing days with the KHL’s Dynamo Moscow.
“Right now, I’m not thinking about it, to be honest with you,” Ovechkin told Knoll. “I’m focused on the season, I’m focused on the next game, and we’ll see what’s going to happen in the future.”
Outside of being the first ever to reach the thousand-goal mark, there are other records that Ovechkin can still track down even if he were to continue playing for just one more season. Included in that are a few still held by Gretzky, including most multi-goal games and the most NHL goals in the regular season and playoffs.
Ovechkin is also just 241 hits away from surpassing Cal Clutterbuck for the most hits in NHL history. He is currently ranked third on the all-time list with 3,788 hits behind only Matt Martin (3,936) and Clutterbuck (4,029).
