Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin played his very first game on October 5, 2005, a home game for the Washington Capitals against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Ovechkin played in his 1,200th career NHL games Tuesday night.
The Capitals chose Ovechkin with the first overall pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, but he didn’t make his debut until the start of the 2005-06 season due to the NHL lockout that resulted in cancelling the 2004-05 season.
Ovechkin had a very resounding NHL career debut where he scored two goals and laid a hit on an opposing player that broke the plexiglass in the arena.
16 years later and many milestones later, Ovechkin played in his 1,200th NHL game. Ovechkin became the first player in franchise history to reach the 1,200 games played. He is one of five active players achieving that milestone, joining Joe Thornton, Zdeno Chara, Dustin Brown and Ryan Suter.
Among players to appear in 1,200 or more NHL games, only Wayne Gretzky has had more goals than Ovechkin at the time of the milestone game.
Ovechkin is also one of four Russian-born players in NHL history to reach the milestone, the others being Alex Kovalev, Sergei Gonchar, and Sergei Fedorov.
Ovechkin passed former franchise leader Calle Johansson when he played in his 984th game on February 26, 2018 against the Columbus Blue Jackets. He played in his 1000th game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on April 1, 2018.
Since his NHL debut, Ovechkin played in 1,200 of a possible 1,242 games (96.6%). Only seven other players in NHL history have played in at least 96% of their team’s games at the 1,200 career game mark, and no other active player has accomplished the feat.
Ovechkin has scored 733 goals which ranks fifth on the all time list. He has recorded 592 assists and has 1325 points in the NHL which is tied for second place among active players with Sidney Crosby.
Besides his 1200 games played milestone, he achieved two other milestones during the 2021-22 season thus far. He passed Marcel Dionne in career goals (731) on October 13 to rank fifth on the All Time List and is now just eight goals behind Brett Hull (741).
October 13 was also his 150th multi-goal game. He passed Mark Messier for fifth place in total goals (regular season and playoffs) with 804 on October 16.
Ovechkin leads the Capitals with three goals and five points through the first two games of the 2021-22 season. The NHL named him second star of the week for the week ending October 17.
Congratulations, Alex, on 1200 games played.
By Diane Doyle
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2nd most goals in 1,200 games. Pretty damn impressive.