Alex Ovechkin’s pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goal record has a stop at the X

Filip Gustavsson had already given up a pair of goals to Alex Ovechkin when the then-Ottawa goalie denied the Washington Capitals superstar of a third on a breakaway.

Ovechkin circled back after the save.

“He came up to me,” Gustavsson recalled. “He’s like, ‘Come on, man. That’s for the hat trick,’ with the super deep Russian accent.”

Without that goal from three seasons ago, Ovechkin is six away from passing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record — a gap that makes Thursday’s game at Xcel Energy Center between the Wild and Capitals an unlikely finish line but still a potentially pivotal stop during Ovechkin’s historic pursuit.

“If we win the game and he gets his record,” Gustavsson said, “I’ll probably jump out and celebrate with him.”

Ovechkin got closer to Gretzky’s 894 before arriving in Minnesota.

He converted during Washington’s 3-2 overtime loss at Winnipeg on Tuesday to climb to 889 and is on an impressive 0.57 goals-per-game pace since returning at the end of December from a broken leg that sidelined him for less than six weeks.

Not only do his 36 goals lead the Capitals, who are battling with the Jets for first place in the NHL after getting swept out of the first round of the playoffs last year, but Ovechkin is fourth in the league at 39 years old.

“Everybody in Russia cheer for him,” Wild forward Yakov Trenin said. “Everybody watching.”

Marcus Johansson never thought about Ovechkin breaking Gretzky’s goals record when the two were teammates with Washington, “but if anyone can do it, it’s him,” Johansson said.

No one in league history has scored more on the power play than Ovechkin, who has capitalized 321 times while patenting the one-timer from the left faceoff circle.

But, as Johansson put it, “you don’t get to that number without being a pretty special goal scorer,” and Ovechkin isn’t a one-trick shooter. Just ask Marc-Andre Fleury, the goaltender Ovechkin has the most goals against.

“He’s such a natural scorer,” said Fleury, who surrendered a 28th goal to Ovechkin in a 4-3 shootout win for the Wild in Washington on Jan. 2 that included Fleury rebuffing Ovechkin in the shootout.

“He loves scoring. You see he still gets emotional when he scores. It’s good. Obviously, a wicked shot. That one-timer is always hard to stop, but also I think his wrister has always been very good, too, shooting from behind a little bit. It always rises up quick, and it’s fast.”

In 24 career games vs. the Wild, Ovechkin has racked up 20 goals.

His highlights include a hat trick on March 28, 2017, when he buried all three on the power play — the most ever by a Wild opponent in a single game.

He had another hat trick on Feb. 11, 2016, when he tallied the fastest three goals against the Wild at Xcel Energy Center by an individual player: Ovechkin netted the goals in the second period of a 4-3 win for Washington, converting at 2 minutes, 14 seconds, 5:21 and 14:55. The winger celebrated exuberantly while wearing his trademark yellow laces and tinted visor, a look the Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov copied while paying homage to Ovechkin during the skills competition before the 2022 NHL All-Star Game.

Kaprizov and Ovechkin have faced off just four times in Kaprizov’s five NHL seasons, with Kaprizov hurt during the teams’ matchup back in January and currently still on the mend from surgery.

“I’m extremely happy for him,” Kaprizov said previously when asked about Ovechkin chasing Gretzky’s record. “I’m excited for him. I’m happy that he’s pursuing that. I believe it’s just a matter of time before he actually breaks the record and gets the record, and I think it’s going to be good for the game and for all of hockey as a whole for him to do that.”

Scoring six goals in a game isn’t unheard of — it’s happened eight times in NHL history, last in 1976 by Darryl Sittler — but it would be a stunning feat for Ovechkin to surpass Gretzky on Wild ice.

Regardless, this is an important opportunity for Ovechkin with only 11 games to go in the regular season.

“That’s what records are for,” said Johansson, who was with the Capitals 2010-2017 and 2021-2023. “They’re meant to be broken. This [is] among some other records people thought were never going to be broken. To see this one coming close now, it’s cool, and it’s special to be part of in this era of hockey, too. It’s pretty impressive.”