Variety is the spice that has Ovechkin fast approaching Gretzky's NHL career goals record

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Wayne Gretzky was so able to control hockey games from behind the net that the area became known as “Gretzky's office,” as he put up more assists than anyone else in NHL history has points.

Alex Ovechkin has scored so many goals with his patented one-timer from the left faceoff circle on the power play that it became known as his spot. Retired goaltender Eddie Lack referred to it as the “Ovizoid."

Just like with Gretzky, whose record of 894 goals he is closing in on breaking, Ovechkin's brilliance comes not from one shot but rather the variety with which he has scored over his two-decade-long career. He has the most career power-play goals and the most empty-netters and soon will pass Gretzky for tops on the overall list thanks to an evolution of his game that has seen him score from more places on the ice in his 20th season than previous years.

"Everyone talks about his spot, but he scores goals from everywhere,” said St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery, who played against Gretzky in North America and then briefly faced a young Ovechkin in Russia. “The true test to his intelligence and creativity is the fact that he’s done it for so many years as the league has continued to change.”

According to NHL Edge puck and player tracking data, Ovechkin has put a shot on net from 15 of the 16 quadrants in the offensive zone and scored from 11 of them.

That is a testament to Ovechkin, now 39 and scoring at a rate almost never seen at this age, adjusting to how opponents defend him and fooling goaltenders in different ways. He has scored on a league-record 181 goalies, adding six new ones to that list this season.

“He shoots hard, he can shoot through you, so it makes it more difficult, especially when it’s coming from a bunch of different angles,” said Logan Thompson, in his first season as a teammate of Ovechkin's with the Washington Capitals after being the 160th netminder he beat along the way. “He’s always finding a way to get it through and he makes it really tricky on goalies. There’s really no method on how to stop him.”

For the defenders tasked with trying to contain Ovechkin, the approach changes with the situation. From his spot, everyone knows what is coming because he has scored 320 times on the power play — 46 more than the next closest.

At even strength, where Ovechkin has scored 495 of his 884 goals and counting, the challenge is keeping an eye on him knowing he has what Blues goalie Jordan Binnington called an “on-off release” and can fling the puck at the net unexpectedly at times.

“I’m not really sure where he shoots it from, and it just finds a way to go in the net,” said Ottawa defenseman Nick Jensen, who played parts of six seasons with Ovechkin on the Capitals. “He’s been doing it for so long that I can’t really explain it. It’s kind of a phenomenon a little bit — or an anomaly. But he’s been doing it for so long, and he continues to do this year.”

Ovechkin reached the 30-goal mark again this season, the record 19th time he has done that, one of the biggest reasons the Capitals are among the top teams in the league. He has thrived alongside 20-something linemates Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas, who have embraced the role of getting Ovechkin the puck as much as reasonably possible.

"He can pretty much get his shot off anywhere," said Strome, who assisted on 17 of Ovechkin's first 31 goals. “He’s been scoring in front of the net or even some wrist shots from the other side. I think the more shot volume the better. It’s good when you come out of a game and see like 12 or 13 shot attempts and seven or eight on net. Usually good things happen when there’s that many chances."

Ovechkin has put more shots on net than any player in league history, and the only reason he's not again in the top 10 this season is that he missed 16 games with a broken left leg. Quality over quantity, perhaps, as he is scoring at a career-best shooting rate of 18.1 percent.

According to NHL statistics, Ovechkin has gotten seven different types of shots on net: 62 snap, 50 wrist, 36 slap, 10 backhand, 10 tips, two deflections and one between the legs. Fourteen goals have come on snap shots, eight on wrist shots, five on slap shots, three on backhanders and one on a tip.

“Any time there’s unpredictability, it makes it hard,” said retired defenseman Karl Alzner, who played nine seasons with Ovechkin and three more against him with Montreal.

“As long as he continues to be unpredictable and do things a little bit different than we’ve seen from his whatever it is 18 years of resume, it’s going to be hard for teams to shut him down.”

Ovechkin is tied for the league lead with seven empty-netters and has the most all time with 64. Gretzky scored 56 of them, too, and coach Spencer Carbery is quick to point out that it's not as easy as it looks.

“There’s a lot of skilled players that play around the league 5 on 6 that aren’t your quote-unquote defensive specialists or your penalty-kill guys that have a ton of value playing 5 on 6 because they are so intelligent with what the offensive players want to do,” Carbery said. "They know where the next play is and where the puck’s going, and that’s what you see from ‘O’ constantly is he’s reading where the next puck is going.”

Ovechkin is on pace to break Gretzky's record sometime in April before the end of this regular season, and No. 895 could come from any number of different ways. Even his teammates don't know what to expect.

"One-timer would be a nice thing to see, but obviously any goal would be," Protas said. “Any way, no matter how, it’s going to be a special moment.”

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