Alex Ovechkin is closing in on Wayne Gretzky's mark and he could very well break it over the weekend. That being said lets do some more predictions on the Washington Capitals captain.
Who will be the opposing goaltender?
Nobody wants to be the goaltender to give up goal number 895 to Alex Ovechkin and have that highlight reel played forever. That being said the unlucky victim will be none other than Ilya Sorokin this Sunday when the Capitals take on the New York Islanders.
Which players will be on the ice?
I'll go out on a limb and say the following: John Carlson, Jakob Chychrun, Ryan Leonard, Dylan Strome and the Great Eight himself will be out there for goal number 895. Earlier we predicted it would come from the office. After 895 happens, we are going to revisit this piece to see what we got right and what we got wrong.
Who makes the assist?
Ryan Leonard will poke it to Dylan Strome who will set up Ovechkin for the one timer in the left face off circle in the Ovechkin office. More than have of the assists on Ovechkin goals have been collected by a group of nine players with two of his biggest helpers combining to set him him Tuesday night in Boston in John Carlson and Strome.
That was before Strome and new Capitals defenseman Jakob Chychrun connected on number 892 on Wednesday night in Carolina. The group of Nicklas Backstrom (279), Carlson (156), Evgeny Kuznetsov (110), Mike Green (70), Marcus Johansson (58), Tom Wilson (49), T.J. Oshie (48), Alexander Semin (45) and Strome (45) collectively have 860 of the 1,514 assists recorded on goals by Ovechkin. That is good for 57 perent.
Strome has been Ovechkin's biggest set up man so far tis season, dishing the puck to him 19 times this season, the 12th time a teammate has set him up that much in one season and the most since Kuznetsov had 23 in 2021-22.
As noted earlier we'll revisit this once the record gets broken to see what we got right and what we got wrong.