Alex Ovechkin has 802 goals. Wayne Gretzky is next in his sights.

Next up, Wayne Gretzky.

Alex Ovechkin surpassed Gordie Howe for second on the NHL scoring list on Friday. With 802 goals, he is now alone behind the Great.

Ovechkin moved into second place after scoring two goals in the Washington Capitals’ 4–1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.

Ovechkin, a 37-year-old left winger, is a bon vivant with the Capitals, who drafted him with the first overall pick in 2004. “If you go first, you’re the best,” he said at the time. “I always want to be the best. Yes, I can play in the NHL, I can score goals.”

That turned out to be an understatement. While expectations were high for Ovechkin, “scoring as many NHL goals as Gordie Howe and perhaps as many as Wayne Gretzky” was not one of the hot takes.

In 18 seasons, Ovechkin has won three Hart trophies, awarded to the league’s most valuable player, and won the Capitals’ only Stanley Cup in the 2017–18 season. He played for Russia in three Winter Olympics, but never won a medal.

And during that time he has scored a lot of goals. He has led the league on nine occasions, most recently in the 2019–20 season, which was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic, when he tied with David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins on 48 goals at age 34.

He has long since left the current group of players behind. Next on the list of active goalscorers is Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who began his career alongside Ovechkin (Crosby was the No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft, but the previous season’s season-cancelling NHL lockout delayed Ovechkin’s start ).

Crosby, a 35-year-old striker who is more of a playmaker than Ovechkin, has 536 goals.

Ovechkin is in the company of the immortals. Gretzky finished with 894 NHL goals and Ovechkin now looks the part at the bottom of the goalscorer list as big as Jaromir Jagr (766), Brett Hull (741), Marcel Dionne (731) and Phil Esposito (717).

And Howe, the man Ovechkin just met at the top, scored his 801 goals in an insanely long career that amounted to 1,767 NHL games – with Detroit and Hartford – more than 400 more than Ovechkin. And he scored another 174 over six seasons in the World Hockey Association.

A year ago, Ovechkin’s capture of Gretzky seemed like a good bet, but not sure. After all, one might expect age to slow Ovechkin’s scoring rate and injuries to his older body could cost him appearances.

But he looked timeless in his last season and a half. In both last season and the current campaign, he is averaging just over 0.6 goals per game, right on his career average. He played in 77 of the Capitals’ 82 regular season games last season and hasn’t missed a game so far this season, even though the Capitals (19-13-4) are struggling.

Amazingly, Ovechkin averages over 20 minutes of ice time per game, one of the top 20 forwards in the league. Only one – Mats Zuccarello of the Minnesota Wild – is over 30.

Let’s say that Ovechkin maintains about 0.6 this season and does not get injured: he could score 30 more goals. If he drops to, say, 0.5 next season, that’s still 40 goals more. Then he would be within 20 or so of Gretzky and ready to break the record in the 2024-25 season.

Earlier this season, Gretzky acknowledged that the question was when, not if, Ovechkin would surpass his record. Since Ovechkin signed a contract in 2021 five-year, $47.5 million contract that will see him through 2025-26, you’d have to agree.

Don’t cry for Gretzky, though. His assist record of 1,963 is more than 700 ahead of second place (Ron Francis, now Seattle’s general manager) and more than 1,000 ahead of Crosby, who has 916 assists. Ovechkin, whose main talent is scoring goals, has 649 assists and there are a handful of active players ahead of him.

Still, with the latest milestone, Ovechkin continues to rise to the upper reaches of the hockey pantheon, and it doesn’t look like he plans to stop anytime soon.