NEW YORK — The only player in NHL history who has been teammates with Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin chuckled.

Mike Knuble loves the stat that Gretzky has more assists than any other hockey player has points.

“If he didn’t score a goal, he’d still be leading everybody in points,” Knuble said. “That’s crazy.”

Now, Ovechkin has more goals after breaking Gretzky’s record by scoring the 895th of his career Sunday, putting the “Great 8” ahead of the “Great One” in terms of putting the puck in the net. But Gretzky’s dominance through the high-scoring 1980s and into the ‘90s was more about playmaking and setting others up, while Ovechkin entered the league in 2005 during a new era of rule changes that opened the door for more offense and earned the record as a hard-shooting pure scorer who affected the sport in different ways.

“Wayne, the way he changed his game was by his thinking: just the turn-ups, the delaying, kind of evolving the game into a little bit more of a thinking man’s game and figure out how to capitalize the area behind the net, really use that to his advantage,” said Knuble, who played a combined 1,133 NHL regular-season and playoff games from 1997-2013. “Alex is just straightforward like, ‘I’m just going to go around you, I’m going through you or however to get this puck in the net.’ Two different styles.”

Reigning Stanley Cup-winning coach Paul Maurice opined, “They’re completely different styles of play: completely different players, other than what an incredible record.”

By the time Maurice started coaching in the NHL in the mid-'90s, Gretzky and Mario Lemieux were on the downside of their careers, and Ovechkin was nearly a decade from starting his.

Teams turned to clutching, grabbing, hooking and holding to slow down skilled stars such as Gretzky.

“Gretzky made the game offensively so much more dynamic,” said St. Louis Blues coach Jim Montgomery, who played a few NHL seasons against Gretzky as well as one game in Russia against Ovechkin. “That led to real more defensive-minded approach by a lot of coaches: How do we stop these delays? How do we stop Gretzky behind the net, so the game got better offensively and then it got better significantly defensively.”

From a height of 8.02 goals a game in 1981-82, when Gretzky set the single-season record with 92, the so-called dead puck era hit its nadir in 2003-04 at 5.14. The Washington Capitals won the draft lottery that spring — 21 years to the day of Ovechkin scoring No. 895 — but a lockout wiped out the entire next season, bringing with it a salary cap and better enforcement of penalties that encouraged scoring with extra room for skating and creativity and more power plays.

“The game opened for most things, and I think that created the opportunity for a great player to come in and challenge the record,” said Maurice, who has coached the second-most games in NHL history behind the legendary Scotty Bowman. “If the game doesn’t change, you wouldn’t have seen somebody challenge Wayne Gretzky’s record.”

Ovechkin has scored a record 325 power-play goals. Gretzky has the most at even strength with 617 and 73 short-handed.

“Ovechkin is the best goal-scorer ever,” said Hall of Famer Teemu Selanne, who’s 12th on the career goals list with 684. “I don’t think a lot of people would consider Gretzky as a goal-scorer, really. He has 894 goals. It’s unbelievable. And he still has 1,000 points more than No. 2 on the scoring list, so those are sick numbers.”

Technically 936 more than second-place Jaromir Jagr and 714 more assists than Ron Francis. Gretzky’s 2,857 points and 1,963 assists are records are far more untouchable than his goal mark ever was.

Gretzky was also so influential that he made the league rewrite part of its rulebook. His teams were too good at 4 on 4 with more ice to work with that each team taking a penalty no longer led to that, and the play remained 5 on 5.

Goaltenders also geared up more along the way, adding padding as stick technology improved and shots got harder and faster. It got more difficult to score, yet Ovechkin still did it more than anyone else.

“It’s so hard,” Gretzky said. “I don’t care what era you play in: ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, it’s hard to score goals. Good for him. Players are better today. The equipment’s better. The coaching’s better. But that’s the progression in our game.”

The game also got faster and more physical — not fighting, exactly, but bigger and stronger players dishing out bone-crushing hits. And unlike so many of his Soviet predecessors, Ovechkin was not fancy and finesse.

“You think of the great Russian players — Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov, Artemi Panarin, Kirill Kaprizov — all of these guys are beautiful skaters with great passing, and they’re the chess players that you expect from Russia,” said Steven Warshaw, a marketing executive who lived and worked in Moscow for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990s when they invested in a team there. “Whereas Ovechkin is more like Bamm-Bamm from the ‘Flintstones.’ He’s got his 100 mph slap shot. He’s a brutal player. He defines power forward. He is clearly a machine.”

Trying to stop Ovechkin the machine and Gretzky over his career that overlapped theirs, Mike Grier acknowledged one was a physical battle and the other more mental.

Gretzky, Lemieux and their ilk were always thinking two steps ahead, while Ovechkin was two steps from laying out a big hit or sniping a shot into the top corner.

“It was kind of a different job when you checked them versus someone like Ovechkin,” said Grier, now general manager of the San Jose Sharks. “Ovi, you have an idea where he’s going to be and he’ll engage in the physical game with you a little bit. I think that sometimes gets him going. But that was the challenge: He could physically take over games and be hard on you and your defensemen, but I think Wayne and those guys, they were just so smart that you think you had a lane covered or something and they’d find the next option.”

Rick Tocchet, who played against and coached with Gretzky and has been on the other bench facing Ovechkin during several playoff series over the years, thinks physicality is a big reason why Ovechkin broke the record.

“People are like, yeah, he’s a great goal-scorer, but this guy’s made some big hits in his career that’s loosened up those goals,” said Tocchet, now coach of the Vancouver Caucks. “That’s why he gets those goals because the next thing you know, the (defensemen) are not going as hard and they lose him and he gets those slot shots and he scores on a million shots around the net, too, because he’s not afraid to go in front of the net.”

But is it harder to score goals during Ovechkin’s time than Gretzky’s?

Tocchet isn’t sure. Knuble is well aware that changes in equipment, goalies and more make it difficult, if not impossible to compare the two, and he and others around the sport prefer to appreciate the varying degrees of greatness.

“It’s a little different era,” Selanne said, “but getting close to 900 goals like Ovechkin right now, it’s remarkable.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Ovechkin has broken Wayne Gretzky’s record for the most goals in NHL history by scoring the 895th of his career.

The Washington Capitals’ captain made history Sunday against the New York Islanders by beating fellow Russian Ilya Sorokin on a power play in the second period. Ovechkin had never scored on Sorokin before, making his countryman the 183rd different goaltender he has beaten.

Just as they did after he scored No. 894 minutes earlier, teammates mobbed the 39-year-old Russian to celebrate the accomplishment, which replaced a record that had stood for 31 years.

Gretzky’s total of 894 goals had long seemed unapproachable. Ovechkin passed it even after missing 16 games in November and December because of a broken left leg, a testament to his durability and a knack for putting the puck in the net consistently for two decades. He surpassed 40 goals this season for a 14th time — two more than Gretzky and also the most in league history.

Even before this, Ovechkin owned the NHL records for power-play goals, shots on goal and the most goalies scored against, now adding Sorokin to that list. Only Gretzky has more multi-goal games, and Ovechkin earlier this season became just the sixth player with 700 goals and 700 assists, joining Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Jaromir Jagr, Marcel Dionne and Phil Esposito.

Ovechkin last moved up the all-time goal-scoring list Dec. 23, 2022, when he got Nos. 801 and 802 to tie and pass Howe.

The chase by the Great 8, a nickname honoring his jersey number, captured attention from North America to Ovechkin’s native Russia, where billboards and goal-counters cheered on and tracked his effort. It helped Ovechkin that his team is one of the best in the NHL this season, defying expectations.

Gretzky broke Howe’s record a little over 31 years ago, since he scored 802 on March 23, 1994. He added 92 more before retiring in 1999 after a total of 1,487 games over 20 seasons.

Even with this one falling to Ovechkin — which he has said he is excited about — Gretzky holds 55 NHL records, and two seem truly untouchable: 2,857 total points and 1,963 assists, the latter of which is more than anyone else has in goals and assists combined.

For NHL playoff goals, which do not count toward the record, Gretzky has the most (122). Ovechkin has 72. Gretzky also had another 56 in the World Hockey Association regular season and playoffs, while Ovechkin has 57 from his time in the KHL, Russia’s top league.

Returning to Russia to play in front of family and friends is an option at some point for Ovechkin, who has one season left after this one on the five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed in 2021, which took him through age 40 to give him enough time to chase Gretzky’s record. Instead, he got it done earlier than just about anyone could have realistically expected.

WASHINGTON — Alex Ovechkin cracked a Bud Light and casually took a sip as nearby fans chanted, “Ovi! Ovi!” He was soon joined by Wayne Gretzky to put the two greatest goal-scorers in NHL history side by side.

At this moment, they are tied at 894 goals apiece after Ovechkin scored twice Friday night to match Gretzky’s total that many thought no one would ever approach. When Ovechkin was asked his feeling about breaking the record, the “Great One” had a great retort.

“Well hold on a second — he hasn’t done it yet,” Gretzky said. “Can you give me 24 more hours?”

Gretzky gets at least that. Ovechkin’s next chance to pass Gretzky comes Sunday in a matinee at the New York Islanders.

All eyes will be on the 39-year-old Russian superstar, who soaked in the moment of celebrating No. 894 in front of Washington Capitals fans who have cheered him on for his two decades in the league and with Gretzky, his mother, wife and children in attendance. As reflective as Ovechkin was about getting there, he instantly went back to his standard answer when asked about when he might break the record.

“It’s game by game; it’s shift by shift,” Ovechkin said. “You never know what’s gonna happen. We just gonna to continue to enjoy it and continue to do our best because we still have six games left before playoffs and our mind right now is get ready for the playoffs and play the right way in the playoffs.”

The playoffs are six games away, but the Capitals first want to make sure Ovechkin gets the record all to himself.

“There’s a reason we try to get it to him: The guy’s got 41 goals,” said center Dylan Strome, who set up Ovechkin’s 893rd goal four minutes into the game against Chicago. “It’s incredible.”

If Ovechkin is unable to score Sunday at the Islanders, the Capitals next play back at home Thursday night against division-rival Carolina. But everyone around the team would like to get this over with as soon as possible, something Gretzky knows from his own pursuit of Gordie Howe’s then-record of 801 in the spring of 1994.

“People don’t realize this — because I went through what Alex is going through — it’s hard on your teammates, too,” Gretzky said. “It’s joyful and it’s exciting, but they feel the pressure and the stress and they have to answer all the questions, also.”

After Ovechkin tied Gretzky, they were more than happy to answer the questions. They could feel the anticipation building toward Ovechkin — the 2018 playoff MVP in leading the Capitals to their first Stanley Cup championship — doing something else special.

“I think the last few games you could sense it a little bit, but obviously on home ice within something extremely doable for the guy, it felt different the whole night,” said longtime teammate John Carlson, who passed the puck to Ovechkin for No. 894. “From warmups, from the drop of the puck, some guys are larger than life in that regard and it just seems like only a few people are capable of it. It seemed inevitable.”

Inevitable until he breaks it, as well. As Gretzky got up to leave the postgame festivities, he hugged Ovechkin and waved and said, “See you guys on Sunday.”

Wayne Gretzky is expected to be in attendance Friday night in Washington with Alex Ovechkin two goals from tying and three from breaking the Canadian great’s NHL record.

The Capitals’ game against Chicago marks the start of Gretzky joining the chase in person.

“It’s great,” Ovechkin said after his team’s morning skate. “He’s been supportive all the time to me. It’s a fun time right now. We’ll see what’s going to happen, but right now it’s all attention to a hockey game. It’s a pretty cool moment.”

Commissioner Gary Bettman, Ovechkin’s wife, Nastya, and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis were in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday night. Ovechkin scored his 892nd goal in that game, putting him a hat trick on home ice away from passing Gretzky’s mark of 894 that long seemed unapproachable.

“It’s going to be fun,” said winger Tom Wilson, who like Gretzky is from Ontario. “It’s bigger than the game right now. It’s bigger than hockey. It’s the ‘Great One.’ I mean, no one would have ever thought that would happen. The energy around this thing the whole year, it’s been second to none, and it’s been something no one’s ever gone through.”

Not at least in 31 years, since Gretzky passed “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe’s all-time mark of 801 career goals. Gretzky is accompanying Ovechkin on the approach to 895 like Howe did for him on the way to 802 in 1994.

“The greatest player of all time is coming to follow us for however long it takes, so it’s exciting,” Capitals center Dylan Strome said. “I think Ovi and Gretzky have a pretty good relationship. And obviously the ambassador that he’s been for the game for as many years as he has, he does a ton for hockey and a ton for Canada, so it’s cool.”

The anticipation is building around hockey for what’s being billed the “GR8 chase,” and Gretzky being in the building is the latest piece of that.

“It just shows you how close the players are in the game and how much respect there is between both of them,” said retired defenseman Jason Demers, an NHL Network analyst who will also be at the game with “NHL Live” moving on site for the occasion. “Having Wayne be there and support Ovechkin, who’s going to basically break his record and take him out of the record books, I know he’s got 20 or 30 more of them, but it’s just wild to think about the support that guys have for one another, and that’s what makes our sport so great.”

RALEIGH, N.C. — Alex Ovechkin moved three goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record after scoring the 892nd of his career in the Washington Capitals’ game at the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night.

Ovechkin beat Frederik Andersen on a 5-on-3 power-play with 34.5 seconds left in the second period. He now has 10 goals in 13 career games against Andersen, 53 overall in the 92 games he has faced Carolina and 32 in 46 games in Raleigh, which is the most of any visiting player.

Commissioner Gary Bettman, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and Ovechkin's wife, Nastya, were in attendance for No. 892, sitting together in a suite.

The 39-year-old Russian has 39 goals this season and is one way from reaching 40 for a 14th time - also the most in league history - despite missing 16 games because of a broken left fibula.

The Eastern Conference-leading Capitals have seven more games left this season. Ovechkin is on pace to pass Gretzky’s mark of 894, which long seemed unapproachable, before the playoffs begin.

Because it is only a regular-season record, Ovechkin’s pursuit would need to continue in October if he does not score two or more the rest of the way this month.

BOSTON — Alex Ovechkin scored his 891st career goal, moving him four away from passing Wayne Gretzky's NHL record, and Dylan Strome broke a third-period tie on Tuesday night to lead the Washington Capitals to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins.

Nic Dowd and Tom Wilson also scored for Washington. Charlie Lindgren made 21 saves to help the Eastern Conference-leading Capitals snap a a three-game losing streak.

David Pastrnak had two goals, Vinni Lettieri scored one and Jeremy Swayman stopped 27 shots for Boston, which lost its ninth in a row.

Ovechkin gave the Capitals a 2-0 lead with about four minutes left in the first period, pushing a cross-crease pass from Strome into an open net. He has 12 goals in his last 18 games and eight games remaining this season to catch Gretzky.

The 39-year-old Russian also shot wide on an empty net in the final minutes.

The Bruins came back in the second, getting a goal from Lettieri six minutes into the second and then the tying score by Pastrnak with three minutes left in the period. But Strome gave Washington the lead midway through the third, grabbing a rebound off the back wall and slipping it past Swayman.

Capitals: Ovechkin is averaging a little less than two goals every three games. At that pace, he would pass Gretzky in the penultimate game of the season, at the New York Islanders on April 15.

Bruins: The fans got what they wanted from their draft lottery-bound team: A goal from Ovechkin and a competitive game.

With five minutes left in the second period, Boston's Jeffrey Viel and Washington's Dylan McIlrath squared off for a fight that seemed like it might be the highlight of the night for those fans actually rooting for the Bruins.

Two minutes later, Pastrnak redirected a slap pass from Morgan Geekie into the net to tie it 2-all.

Capitals forward and Massachusetts native Ryan Leonard played his first NHL game. The Hobey Baker Award finalist had back-to-back 30-goal seasons at Boston College, which was eliminated from the NCAA hockey tournament on Sunday night.

The Capitals are in Carolina to play the Hurricanes on Wednesday night and the Bruins visit the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For Alex Ovechkin, scoring the 890th goal of his career wasn’t such a sweet moment; in fact, moving five goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record didn’t matter much to the 39-year-old after an 8-5 loss at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres.

“Right now, we lost three in a row,” Ovechkin said. “It’s a good thing it happens right now and not in the playoffs, but we just have to bounce back and find a way to win the games.”

Ovechkin scored at 9:11 of the third period, deflecting Rasmus Sandin’s shot past James Reimer to pull Washington within two.

Though the Capitals were able to pull within one and seemed to kick their game into higher gear after his goal, the 39-year-old said it was Aliaksei Protas’ shorthanded tally at the start of the period that sparked the rally.

“When you score on the PK, it give you more (life) and you can see our bench getting after the game,” Ovechkin said. “We tried to come back, but unfortunately, we can’t.”

He is now back on pace to pass Gretzky’s mark of 894 that long seemed unapproachable this spring. He has 37 this season and is on track to reach 40 for a 14th time, also the most in league history, despite missing 16 games because of a broken left fibula.

“Again, it’s insane number,” Protas said. “I don’t think I’d ever get that, even in NHL 25 (the video game) ... he’s chasing something special.”

Before capping off a three-point night in the third period, Ovechkin had found his ice time limited amid numerous defensive zone starts, penalty kills and an unsatisfactory effort from the top-six. He skated just 7:43 minutes through the first two periods, the lowest on the team, and finished the night with 16:22 minutes while moving to Pierre-Luc Dubois’ line.

“We were fighting to stay in that game, I didn’t like any of our top-six again tonight,” coach Spencer Carbery said, adding, “It just hasn’t looked great. Their underlying numbers haven’t been great the last two games from our top-six.”

Ovechkin will continue his pursuit of Gretzky on Tuesday when the Capitals head north to visit the Boston Bruins.

SUNRISE, Fla. — Brad Marchand has made his Florida debut.

The Panthers had Marchand — who, because of an upper-body injury, hasn’t appeared in a game with Florida since being acquired in a trade with Boston three weeks ago — in the starting lineup Friday night when the team played host to the Utah Hockey Club.

Marchand, who was greeted by plenty of fans around the ice during warm-ups and even flicked a puck into the stands toward one group as a souvenir, got the loudest reception of any of Florida’s skaters when the game-opening unit was announced.

It was the first time in 1,091 NHL games, 1,248 when adding in playoff contests, that Marchand took the ice in something other than a Bruins sweater. Marchand was on Florida’s second line with Sam Bennett and Mackie Samoskevich — who grew up in New England watching Marchand play for the Bruins.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Samoskevich said of playing with Marchand. “He’s such a good player. So silky. I feel like when he has the puck, he sees you — he’s got eyes in the back of his head. It’s a lot of fun. Excited for the future with him. He’s such a good guy off the ice, too.”

Marchand had 21 goals and 26 assists in 61 games with the Bruins this season, and Panthers coach Paul Maurice said when the deal got done that Marchand, he believes, helps fill what Florida will need in its playoff run and its quest to win a second consecutive Stanley Cup.

“He’s had an incredible career,” Maurice said. “He’s a Stanley Cup champion, 1,000 games, 1,000 penalty minutes, lots of points. I don’t want to see it all in one game. ... You know how tenacious this guy is, how physical he is, how hard he plays. Then you get him in practice and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, he’s got hands on him.’ And you start to realize how good the skill level is there.”

It may have been strange at first, with the former captain of the Bruins wearing Florida colors after those teams had tough playoff battles — both won by the Panthers — in 2023 and 2024. But by all accounts, Marchand has fit perfectly into the Florida mix.

“He brings a lot of energy to the locker room, a lot of compete on the ice,” Panthers defenseman Gus Forsling said. “A huge veteran that’s going to be big for us.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alex Ovechkin didn’t score for Washington, staying at 889 career goals and six away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.

Ovechkin did initiate a memorable moment on the ice in Minnesota on Thursday night, though.

The three-time NHL MVP, who has been in the spotlight for months amid his pursuit of Gretzky’s career goal mark, hustled over toward the tunnel behind the bench after the horn sounded on Washington’s 4-2 loss to make sure all of the Capitals came back on the ice to shake hands with retiring Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Ovechkin was the first to greet Fleury at mid-ice as they shared a hug and a laugh.

Fleury, who’s in his 21st and assuredly final season in the league, was on the home bench all night while Filip Gustavsson manned the net.

Ovechkin mentioned to the team in the morning that it would be the last matchup against Fleury, who faced Ovechkin and the Capitals frequently over the first 13 seasons of his career with Pittsburgh. Ovechkin had 28 goals in 47 games against Fleury, his most against any goalie.

“He’s had so many battles with the Caps, with ‘O,’” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “Pretty classy to be able to send him off and just say how impressive a career he had.”

Capitals center Dylan Strome played briefly with Fleury in Chicago.

“Everyone knows he’s one of the best people of all time in the game, so the little respect we can show him at the end of the game I think goes a long way,” Strome said.

The Wild were impressed by the gesture, even if they weren’t surprised.

“Every team we go to, you see the signs. Everyone loves him, and everyone loves playing against him,” Gustavsson said. “I think no one really would say anything bad about him.”

At some point soon, the Wild will likely find themselves doing their own internal tribute.

“It’s awesome to see. It’s fun for him, and I am happy for him,” defenseman Jonas Brodin said. “He’s a great person and one of the best I have ever played with, so it’s pretty cool. It’s special to have that when you quit hockey someday, that you played with that guy, for sure.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Washington Capitals signed defenseman Dylan McIlrath to a two-year, $1.6 million contract Thursday.

The 32-year-old McIlrath has two assists in 11 games this season. He was set to become an unrestricted free agent after the season.

McIlrath captained Washington affiliate Hershey’s 2023 and 2024 Calder Cup championship teams in the American Hockey League. The 6-foot-6 defender has three goals and six assists in 86 career NHL regular-season games with Washington, Florida, the New York Rangers and Detroit.