Alex Ovechkin recently entered the top ten on the NHL’s all-time points list, as his hat trick and assist against Montreal shot him to 1,643 points, two better than Joe Sakic.
While Ovi’s presence in the top ten is certainly fantastic, the statistical differences between him and the others are glaring, as he’s the only pure goal-scorer up there. To put it in perspective, the next closest player to him for assists is Mario Lemieux, who has nearly 300 more.
| No. | Player | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
| 1 | Wayne Gretzky | 1,487 | 894 | 1,963 | 2,857 |
| 2 | Jaromir Jagr | 1,733 | 766 | 1,155 | 1,921 |
| 3 | Mark Messier | 1,756 | 694 | 1,193 | 1,887 |
| 4 | Gordie Howe | 1,767 | 801 | 1,049 | 1,850 |
| 5 | Ron Francis | 1,731 | 549 | 1,249 | 1,798 |
| 6 | Marcel Dionne | 1,348 | 731 | 1,040 | 1,771 |
| 7 | Steve Yzerman | 1,514 | 692 | 1,063 | 1,755 |
| 8 | Mario Lemieux | 915 | 690 | 1,033 | 1,723 |
| 9 | Sidney Crosby | 1,373 | 638 | 1,072 | 1,710 |
| 10 | Alex Ovechkin | 1,513 | 907 | 736 | 1,643 |
I’m mentioning this because the top points leaderboard will always belong to the greatest passers. This means that Ovi will get knocked out of the top ten someday, overtaken by players such as Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Nikita Kucherov. McDavid, in fact, already has more assists than Ovi – in 777 fewer games.
So the fact that Ovi even broke the top ten just shows how good at goal-scoring he actually is, plus how durable he is. But his assist totals won’t be enough to keep him there. With 736, he’s currently 54th all-time, and will likely finish his career after he knocks longtime teammate Nicklas Backstrom out of the top 45 (in far more games). To be clear: These are not bad numbers at all, but hardly in the upper echelon of the game’s top playmakers.
So long as every goal can have up to two assists, and each assist is worth as many points as a goal, it’ll always be easier for players – even the league’s greatest – to pad their stats with assists instead of goals.
Now, if there was only a list that tells us a different story about how great Ovi is, compared to every other player.
