Early Trading: Gr8 plans for record goal; what's next for Ovi?

TSN Hockey Insider Chris Johnston on how Alex Ovechkin’s goal record will be celebrated at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the head coach and players we can expect to be part of Team Canada for the Men’s World Championship next month.

How will Ovechkin's record-breaking goal be celebrated at the Hockey Hall of Fame?

GINO REDA: The Ovi celebrations continue. Fans paid a small fortune to get into the arena to see his record-breaking goal, No. 895, in person. It was a great celebration, and now Chris Johnston’s got news on how the rest of hockey fans can share in the celebration in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

What’s the plan there, C.J.?

CHRIS JOHNSTON: Well, eventually, of course, there’s going to be some memorabilia on display and preserved in history, like all of the great artifacts in the game.

But I think what makes this unique Gino is that Alex Ovechkin, himself, is quite a collector. Not only does he get sticks from other players, throughout his goal chase he has been keeping pucks and sticks and sweaters that he used to score all of those memorable goals.

You might have saw on the bench on Sunday in Long Island, he was asking immediately afterwards, “Hey, did anyone get the puck?” And so where it stands right now is that Ovechkin and the Capitals have collected a whole bunch of stuff from that record chase, and ultimately culminating with him breaking the record.

They’re going to circle back at some point with the Hall of Fame to determine exactly what goes where because Ovechkin has his own sort of rival mini Hall of Fame that he’s kept, but there were meetings prior to him breaking the record. Certainly, the players were on board, the team was on board with getting some items there. And anyone who’s visited the Hall in downtown Toronto, they had Wayne Gretzky’s net that he scored No. 802 in, and that was a pretty prominent display for years at the Hall.

I would expect, down the road, we’ll see something similar for Ovechkin.

REDA: What are you thinking? What would you project down the road for Ovi? Do we see him drive hard now for 900? Any chance we see him make a drive for 1,000, as well?

JOHNSTON: Well, you know, the sky is the limit. A lot of people didn’t think he’d get to this point, and so, I think it’s possible.

There’s still the matter of what he does with his last season remaining on his contract, Gino. How do things change for him now that he isn’t chasing anybody? Each goal, of course, he will be pushing the bar a little higher and higher from anyone who’s come before him when it comes to goal scoring in the NHL, but does he want to continue beyond this year?

I don’t think that’s anything that has been decided on at this stage, but it will be something to be considered this summer. All we know for sure is, of course, he’s playing out this season. He’s five goals from 900 with five games left. Wouldn’t rule out, maybe, he keeps going on this hot streak and pushes for that number, but it’s unclear at this stage.

Does he come back for a 21st season or beyond? Because obviously we’re talking about a player, without question, towards the end of his NHL career.

REDA: And I don’t think we see him turn down any more empty netters if he gets the opportunity to play with the empty net.

JOHNSTON: He didn’t until Friday, either!

REDA: Yeah, exactly.

Which players could suit up for Team Canada at world hockey championships?

Let’s look ahead at some international hockey, the world hockey championship is going to be hosted by Sweden and Denmark beginning May 9, that’s just about a month away right now.

It’s always interesting to see who make themselves available once they’re out of the playoffs. What are you expecting, C.J.?

JOHNSTON: Well, we’re in this era now where best on best has been revived. Obviously, there’s the Olympics on the plate, coming in 2026 in Milan, and so I think it’s going to be a strong team.

What Hockey Canada is doing right now is they believe they can take some time before formalizing a lot of aspects of this because there is such a long leap period before the tournament itself begins.

But you do have eight teams already in the NHL officially eliminated from playoff contention. I would expect some continuity from that 4 Nations team, guys like Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim from the Philadelphia Flyers. Wouldn’t be surprising to see them find their way onto Canada’s roster at this tournament.

Maybe some of the young stars, Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard, seem like a good chance you may see both of those players there. Maybe even a veteran like Ryan O’Reilly, who’s had a tough year in Nashville, has shown some interest in perhaps being part of this team.

But nothing has to be sort of formalized or locked in stone just because I think Hockey Canada does want to wait and see the entire pool of players available. But I’d expect it to be a strong team with a number of guys that they’re wanting to put their best foot forward in this new era of best-on-best competition having returned.

REDA: When we were just down at the GM meetings in Florida, we were talking about the fact that Kyle Dubas could be leading the management team on this.

Where are they going for Team Canada in terms of a head coach?

JOHNSTON: Kyle Dubas was part of the staff at last year’s world championships, at the 4 Nations so there’s continuity there. I think they’d like some continuity behind the bench, but of course, Jon Cooper, Pete DeBoer, Bruce Cassidy, some of the guys that were involved, won’t be available at the world championship.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they did tap on the shoulder of Rick Tocchet, the Vancouver Canucks coach. Now, Vancouver is still officially in the playoff picture and so we have to see how that situation resolves in terms of them trying to make an unlikely pitch for a playoff spot.

But if he’s available, I would think, again, going on that continuity string, he’s someone that would be of high interest to Hockey Canada. But whether it’s Tocchet or someone else, I do know that they feel there’s a huge pool of qualified coaching candidates out there, and they will likely finalize that at some point once we get beyond the regular season.

REDA: That’s the early talk on Insider Trading.

We’ll have the full version of Insider Trading coming up later on the early edition of SportsCentre.