Alex Ovechkin Is About to Double Up on Peter Bondra’s Goal Total

(Alex Ovechkin)

It’s been widely noted that Caps captain Alex Ovechkin needs only 11 goals to become the NHL’s all-time leader in goal scoring when combining the regular season and the playoffs. With 1,006, he’ll be passing Wayne Gretzky, who has 1,016. But with 15 goals, he’ll do something that, statistically, is mind-boggling for other reasons.

Once he hits 944 goals, he’ll have exactly double the number of goals that Peter Bondra scored for the Capitals, a difference between two teammates that far exceeds the top two teammates of any other franchise. This would make sense for teams who historically only had one superstar, but Bondra was no slouch. He led the Caps in goals seven times, and topped the NHL twice. His 472 goals (again, with the Caps) are enough to lead 17 other franchises.

The goal differential between Ovi and Bondra is currently 457. To put this in perspective, the two second-largest differentials are Ottawa’s Daniel Alfredsson with 175 more goals than Jason Spezza, and St. Louis’s Brett Hull with 175 more than Bernie Federko.

In terms of percentage, in second place right now – cue the groans from Caps fans – Nashville’s Filip Forsberg has 358 goals to David Legwand’s 210, 70.48% more.

When combining the top two franchise leaders, Ovi and Bonzai (1,401 combined) are in second place to Detroit’s Gordie Howe (786) and Steve Yzerman (692), who have 1,478. Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby (1,344) are in third place.

While many team records have been in place for decades (Islanders’ Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier, Montreal’s Maurice Richard and Guy Lafleur, and Boston’s Johnny Bucyk and Phil Esposito, for example), other teams have active players adding to their team leads, like Toronto’s Auston Matthews and Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov. One of the most notable franchise records that could be overtaken is Edmonton’s duo of Gretzky and Jari Kurri, as Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid keep scoring (Draisaitl is already the all-time leader in the team’s power-play goals, which seems impossible.)

Some teams, historically, have a second place goal-scorer who isn’t all that impressive, relatively speaking. The Florida Panthers have played 33 seasons, and their second all-time leading goal scorer is Jonathan Huberdeau, with 198, the lowest among every team but the recent expansion teams.

Obviously, these stats get skewed by the number of games played for a franchise – Ovi has played 612 more games than Bondra for the Capitals, and players like Gretzky shipping off to new teams bring an end to franchise records, as well.

Some of these teams were blessed to have their top two franchise leaders on the team at the same time, and even won Stanley Cups together, while other teams, including the Caps, have leaders separated by a generation or two.

Here is the data: