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What Gretzky said after Ovechkin broke his all-time goals record

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
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Apr 6 2025, 7:33 pm
What Gretzky said after Ovechkin broke his all-time goals record
Geoff Burke/Imagn Images

Alexander Ovechkin is now the NHL’s greatest goalscorer after surpassing Wayne Gretzky this afternoon.

The Great Eight scored his 895th career goal with a powerplay goal in the second period of Sunday’s game. That catapulted him past Gretzky’s 894 career markers all alone at the top of the record books. It took him just 1487 NHL games to get the record, which is the same number of games that Gretzky played as well.

The goal and subsequent celebration was vintage Ovechkin as he blew a puck past Ilya Sorokin and then dived onto the ice as his teammates swarmed him.

Gretzky was actually in attendance at UBS Arena in New York to witness the moment. As part of an on-ice mid-game ceremony, the Great One was given the mic and gave a speech congratulating Ovechkin on breaking his record.

“I can tell you first-hand how hard it is to get 894, 895 is pretty special,” Gretzky said. “My congratulations to not only Alex, his mom and dad, his family, his wife and kids.

“They say records are made to be broken but I’m not sure who is going to get more goals than that.Ā Alex, I said I’d be the first guy to shake your hand when you broke the record.”

It was truly an iconic moment of the sport to have Gretzky not only on-hand for the historic goal but to also shake Ovechkin’s hand as he passed the torch to the new NHL all-time goal-scoring leader.

On top of his congratulations to Ovechkin, the Great One also made sure to play to the Islanders crowd, who were ecstatic to witness the moment, but must’ve felt just a tad weird to celebrate a goal against.

It was fitting as Gretzky’s last NHL goal also came against the Islanders back in March of 1999.

“I wanted to say it’s nice not to be at the Nassau Coliseum because I lost a lot of games there,” Gretzky said with a laugh. “I got to sit with Bryan Trottier and Butch Goring today… I wish the Islanders and New York fans all the best but we’re today to celebrate this guy here, number eight.”

It wasn’t all cheering during Gretzky’s speech. He made sure to congratulate each NHL organization, the league itself, as well as commissioner Gary Bettman. He also made a point to thank the refs, to which the crowd’s cheers turned to boos.

Gretzky must’ve seen that coming as he had a witty comeback for the jeers.

“Trust me, I was John McEnroe a lot when I played,” Gretzky said with a laugh. “These guys do an incredible job. Thank you all so much.”

At the end of his speech he turned to Capital owner Ted Leonsis and told him that he got gifted a Rolls Royce when he initially broke the record, so he better do the same for Ovechkin as well.

This will certainly be a day that won’t soon be forgotten in NHL history and having Gretzky there to acknowledge the moment made it that much more special.

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