Ovi Will Finish The Season With 48 Goals, Which Sucks For Record Keeping Because A 50 Goal Season Would Have Put Him In Elite Company
The great news is hockey is developing a plan to finish this season. That's obviously wonderful. But with the regular season done, I can't help but to be bummed for Ovi. He's out here chasing Gretzky in all sorts of goal record categories, and it sucks this season is officially over. It was still a phenomenal year for him, obviously, but all those graphics where he should be at the top or tied with Gretzky are going to need an asterisk to remind everyone Ovi finished with 48 goals in just 68 games, and had 5 in the final 5 games of the regular season, so 60 wasn't even off the table.
Obviously everyone's career is filled with "what ifs", but I hate getting robbed of greatness. I hate that we'll always have to wonder how many goals Ovi *really* would have had if his first season wasn't completely canceled due to the lock-out, if the 2012-2013 season wasn't shortened to 48 games (where he still scored 32 in that time) and now this. Thankfully it only took a dozen games off the end, so could be much worse, but still, you know, history doesn't care about that.
I 100% feel that if Ovechkin wants to break the Great One's all time goal scoring record, he will. Just depends on how long he wants to play. He's at 706 so he need 189 more to break it, which doesn't seem like that many in perspective. If he averages between 40-45 goals a season and if there's no more lockouts or pandemics, he can do it in under 5 full seasons. That's a piece of cake. Shit, if he wants to play 10 more seasons, which there's no reason he can't, I think he could hit the 1,000 mark. All depends on what he feels like doing, but there's no reason to think it's not possible.
So yeah. Congrats on another Rocket Richard, and let's go win a Cup.
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PS: How weird would it be for your team to win a Cup but in front of no fans? Seems so odd.