Ovechkin squirts what we assume is water onto the Capital One Arena ice. (Caps Outsider)
This was inevitable. With six shots on goal against Ottawa on Thursday, Alex Ovechkin passed longtime Bruins defenseman Ray Bourque in career shots on goal. (Bourque played more than 300 more games than Ovechkin.)
Bourque’s record had been 6,209 shots, so Ovi is now two better with 6,211.
Ovi has other shot records, including ones that no one cares about, such as missed shots (he’s currently more than 1,000 more than Jeff Carter), ‘missed shots wide’ and most posts hit. There’s a caveat to this: The NHL hasn’t always kept statistics on this stuff, so some of these ‘records’ don’t include folks like Gordie Howe, Rocket Richard and Bobby Hull. However, the basic shot on goal stat has been kept long enough that it’s very likely that Ovi is indeed the all-time leader, even when factoring the folks from the NHL’s ice age.
There’s one shots on goal record Ovi doesn’t have. In 1970-71, Phil Esposito was credited with 550 shots on goal. Ovi’s best season came in 2008-2009 when he got 528. No one else has ever cracked 500 in a season.
This season, he’s got 150, which is top five in the league.
All this said, the accuracy of this stat has always been called into question, as it’s a scorekeeper’s discretion and often left to judgment calls. But with Ovi, we know that he’s definitely shoots more than anyone else in NHL history.
