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  • Jeff Passan, ESPNNov 2, 2023, 02:40 PM ET

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      ESPN MLB insider
      Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports”

PHOENIX — AROUND 1 A.M., just hours after he managed the Texas Rangers to their first World Series championship in 63 years of existence, Bruce Bochy hoisted himself from a chair and ambled toward the door at the back entrance of the Arizona Biltmore hotel. Bochy moves in slow motion these days, lurching more than walking, but before heading to his room for the night, he wanted to bid farewell to the men he’d spent the previous 8½ months preparing for this very moment.

When Bochy poked his head into McArthur’s restaurant, he saw the spoils of his work: drinks being downed and laughs being had and success being rewarded. Almost every Rangers player was present, the room packed to the gills with family and friends, and once they noticed who had come to pay homage to this moment decades in the making, they cut off their conversations and started to chant themselves hoarse.

“Boch! Boch! Boch!” they yelled in unison.

About 30 minutes earlier, Bochy sat outside, nursing a beer and talking about Game 5 of the 119th World Series, a 5-0 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks that ended with a swarm of Rangers moshing around the mound. Less than a year ago, he was spending his retirement in Nashville, Tennessee, coaching his grandson’s T-ball team, and now he was the owner of a fourth championship, only the sixth manager with as many.

“The whole thing just doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Bochy said.

On one hand, Bochy is correct. This year, this October in particular, the Rangers drove through a thunderstorm and emerged dry. They finished the regular season with 90 wins. One fewer and they’d have spent the postseason at home. They beat a 99-win team and two division champions to get to the World Series, where they faced an 84-win Arizona team whose own kismet came with an expiration date. They went 11-0 on the road in the playoffs, a record unlikely ever to be matched.

On the other, it makes all sorts of sense. The Rangers were no accident. They were a master plan executed to a gilded end. They played exceptionally clean baseball. They hit for average and power. They pitched enough not to drag down their strengths. They let neither the gravity of October nor that of their past subsume them. They won because they played better than everyone else for a month, something they’d nearly done once before — something that haunted them for the past dozen years until a called third strike Wednesday finally delivered the peace they’d long sought.

THE MASTER PLAN began on Dec. 4, 2020, when the Rangers, “sick of losing,” hired Chris Young as their general manager. Young, a Dallas-area native, had spent 13 years pitching in the major leagues, including his first two for the Rangers. He had worked as an executive at Major League Baseball, where he was beloved, and now would work alongside Jon Daniels, the Rangers’ president and architect of their World Series teams in 2010 and ’11.

Over the next year, Daniels and Young carried out an audacious objective. They were going to spend their way back to relevancy. Despite three last-place finishes over the previous four seasons, they believed the heart of the organization — drafting, signing international free agents and developing players — was strong. Free agency done right could accelerate the process.

In a 24-hour period from Nov. 28-29, 2021, the Rangers signed second baseman Marcus Semien, right-hander Jon Gray and shortstop Corey Seager for a combined $556 million. Never before, nor since, has a team committed so much money in such a short timespan. For Seager (10 years, $325 million) and Semien (seven years, $175 million) in particular, the choice to sign with a Texas team that looked to the industry like it was going nowhere fast registered as puzzling.

“We told them, ‘This is an immense challenge. Are you up for this? You don’t have to be. You can go anywhere you want. Are you up for this? It’s going to be hard,’ ” Young said. “They each sat up in their chair and looked at me with this competitive edge and said, ‘I’m not afraid of that.’ And you could just see it in their eyes.”

Their first season with Texas last year left those eyes bloodshot. The Rangers went 68-94. On Aug. 15, they fired manager Chris Woodward, and two days later, owner Ray Davis let go of Daniels, too, leaving Young in charge. The Rangers understood that as seminal as the 2021-22 offseason was, the next winter would prove every bit as important. Because after shoring up their offense, the second part of the plan included finding someone who could lead Texas where it intended to go.

That process started one year and two weeks ago, when, for seven hours, over crustless egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches cut into triangles, Chris Young and Bruce Bochy talked baseball. Young had flown to Nashville to convince Bochy to return to what he did better than anyone in his generation: manage a big league team. Young had played for a year under Bochy with the San Diego Padres, and the experience stuck with him. Nobody amalgamated baseball knowledge with human touch quite like Bochy. He’d won three World Series with the San Francisco Giants and already etched his eventual Hall of Fame plaque. Young’s only hope was that the competitive fire in Bochy still glowed.

“We laughed, we shared stories, our vision for what the game should look like, the balance of people versus front office influence,” Young said. “And it was a great conversation. I left there thinking there may be a chance. He had studied. He knew our organization. He was asking about prospects. He asked me about our R&D department. He said, ‘I need information. I need to know, are you guys good in this area?’ I could tell just like everything, and now I see it on a daily basis, he just listens and processes and synthesizes and then makes great decisions.”

Bochy agreed to a three-year deal on Oct. 21, 2022, a week before the World Series began, and got to work immediately. His presence alone didn’t lead to a roomful of people chanting his name. Leadership change is all well and good. But going from 68-94 to contender would take a bevy of arms and another boatload of money.

WHEN HE TOOK the GM job with the Rangers, Chris Young warned his wife, Liz, and their three kids that life was going to get a little weird. Running a team takes a special sort of freneticism, a working-at-all-hours motor.

Even though he had signed the best pitcher on the free agent market, Jacob deGrom, to a five-year, $185 million contract and added left-hander Andrew Heaney for $27 million over two years, Young lived by the credo that a team can never have too much pitching. And it just so happened that Nathan Eovaldi, the veteran right-hander whose postseason excellence earned him a reputation as one of the game’s great warriors, remained unsigned in late December, even as the rest of the industry had lavished more than $3 billion on free agents.

Hearing Young talk invigorated Eovaldi. It wasn’t just their shared experience as pitchers and the shared language they spoke. Young spoke about the Rangers with the certitude of someone who ran a team that had gone 94-68 the previous season, not 68-94.

“Our talks in the offseason, it was all about winning the World Series championship,” Eovaldi said. “The offense was there. CY was really adamant about adding pitching, and when they signed deGrom and Heaney, I thought I was done. And then Christmas, we were able to make it happen.”

Eovaldi was Davis’ two-year, $34 million Christmas gift to the Rangers. The team had already spent half a billion dollars on a pair of middle infielders. Not chasing it with more money, more talent, would have been the half-measure to end all half-measures. As much as the industry scoffed and saw Texas as the most OK team money can buy, something bigger was happening.

Seager and Semien were the centerpieces, yes, but Adolis Garcia had evolved into an All-Star-caliber right fielder and Jonah Heim had emerged as a solid catcher and Nathaniel Lowe won a Silver Slugger at first base. Josh Jung, drafted by Daniels in 2019, had developed into an excellent third baseman, and Evan Carter, whose selection in the 2020 draft prompted guffaws from MLB Network analysts who had never heard of him, was one of the best outfield prospects in baseball, perhaps a year or two from the big leagues. Complementing that group with an overhauled pitching staff, and tapping Bochy to play alchemist, added up to something interesting.

That interesting turned good in a hurry. The Rangers swept Philadelphia, the defending National League champion, in their opening series. During Seager’s early-season five-week absence with a hamstring pull, Texas scored more runs than every big league team. The Rangers led the American League West every day of the first half but one. As the Aug. 1 trade deadline approached, Young assessed the Rangers’ current state of affairs — still light on pitching after deGrom’s season-ending elbow-ligament tear — and wondered if he should add more.

The Rangers’ front office decamped to Young’s house in San Diego, where the team was playing a three-game series, for the deadline. He surveyed his staff about the proper approach. How aggressive should they be? Is this a team that can win the World Series? Answering such questions vexes baseball-operations departments around the game. For many, baseball is too damn unpredictable to mortgage the future for a present so sodden with randomness. Young does not abide by this approach, and his subordinates share that aggressiveness. If they could win, they would try to win.

So first the Rangers acquired Max Scherzer, the 39-year-old future Hall of Famer, from the New York Mets for Luisangel Acuna, a top prospect and brother of Atlanta star Ronald Acuna Jr. A day later, they dealt a pair of prospects, infielder Thomas Saggese and right-hander T.K. Roby, to St. Louis for left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery and right-handed reliever Chris Stratton. Other teams saw it as a coup for the Cardinals, and with the deals completed in the midst of San Diego’s three-game sweep of Texas, flickers of self-doubt emerged in Young.

“What am I doing?” he asked Liz.

What needed to be done, it turns out. Because Young was right. You never can have enough pitching. Eovaldi’s elbow started barking and sent him to the injured list. Without Scherzer and Montgomery, the Rangers’ late-season swoon — which included an eight-game losing streak — might have turned into a full-on collapse and thwarted any sort of October appearance, let alone a championship run.

“It certainly didn’t guarantee this, but it gave us a better chance of this,” Young said. “And these players deserved that. Boch deserved that. Our ownership and our fans deserve that. And that’s what we’re here to do.”

AT THE BEGINNING of spring training, Young and Bochy introduced a set of organizing principles — simple-to-grok ideals scalable across the organization, from the front office to the field and beyond. They had settled on three pillars.

Dominate the fundamentals.

Compete with passion.

Be a good teammate.

“It’s the things that we know for us to be successful we have to do, and pretty much every component of what we do on a daily basis falls into one of those, whether it’s your behavior, your play, how you work,” Rangers bench coach Will Venable said. “It’s overall accountability, and as much as they might sound corny sometimes, they’re what guide us. [Bochy] creates an environment where people feel they can be themselves. He challenges the staff but is really open-minded and inclusive. So I think everyone just feels empowered to come every day having critically thought about things and is confident to voice their opinions. And he always gets to the best stuff because he asks questions. He’s open, he’s adaptable. He’s amazing.”

Those tenets were signposts throughout the season, and they also made it easier for the Rangers to remain impervious from any panic surrounding their September swoon. As the postseason began, Eovaldi’s elbow had healed. So had injuries to Garcia, Heim and Jung, who had gone from rookie with questions about his defense to All-Star Game starter and Gold Glove-caliber fielder. Garcia’s knee strain had prompted the early ascent of Carter, who thrived at 21 years old and earned an everyday role. Scherzer and Gray were out with injuries, and the bullpen was thin, but Texas’ tenets offered them solace.

They were good teammates, as the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays found out when Texas swept them in the wild-card round.

“A teammate is a person that will do anything to win the game regardless of the situation,” Rangers designated hitter Mitch Garver said. “If Boch told me to bunt” — he last laid down a sacrifice in 2018 — “I would do it. I’m willing to sacrifice my own career to better the team.”

They competed with passion, as the 101-win AL East champion Baltimore Orioles learned when the Rangers swept them in the division series.

“The fact that I’m one of those that shows it outwardly, passionately,” Garcia said, “doesn’t diminish the others who also compete with passion as well in their own way.”

Said Seager, whose outward stoicism is every bit the defining characteristic as his excellence as a hitter: “Being with your teammates. Being out on the field with your guys trying to accomplish one goal. I would say that’s what passion is for me.”

And they especially dominated the fundamentals. While the other two ideals necessitated only effort, dominating the fundamentals took an attention to detail few teams emphasize. The Rangers fixated on limiting errors after committing 96 in 2022. They followed the lead of Semien, who for the fourth consecutive full season played every game and did so because, he said, inactivity stimulates sloppiness. Texas made only 57 errors, the third-fewest by a team in major league history.

“We’ve just got obsessed dudes that are obsessed with their work, that are obsessed with winning, that are just obsessed with the day-to-day,” said catcher Austin Hedges, another trade-deadline acquisition. “I think that’s what baseball’s all about. It’s the day-to-day. We play 162 games plus another whatever in the playoffs, plus spring training. If you don’t love showing up to the field every day with the boys, then it’s not going to go well. But when you truly look forward to it and you have a group of guys you look forward to seeing, those things happen. If you don’t have that obsession, you might as well not even write those things down.”

After winning the AL pennant in spectacular fashion — taking all four road games of the seven-game series against Houston, which beat Texas for the AL West title via head-to-head regular-season record — Texas advanced to a World Series against the team with the second-fewest errors ever: Arizona. And in the course of their five-game romp, the Rangers became the first team since the 1966 Baltimore Orioles to win a World Series without committing an error.

Defense alone wouldn’t carry the Rangers, though. Garcia won ALCS MVP with a historic performance, driving in 15 runs in the series and hitting homer after epic homer. His strained oblique and Scherzer’s locked-up back ended their World Series after the third game, leaving Texas shorthanded. They’d been there, of course, whether in April and May without Seager or later in the season with the injury deluge. They dropped five runs with two outs in the second and third innings of Game 4 and romped. On Wednesday, one day later, Eovaldi threw six scoreless innings and held the Diamondbacks hitless in 10 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. Arizona starter Zac Gallen was even better over those six innings, holding Texas hitless.

“Getting no-hit in the seventh, we still find a way,” Montgomery said. “I mean, I think that sums up the grit of our guys and the battle. There was no panic in that dugout. Because here’s the thing. We’ve still got Corey Seager and Marcus Semien.”

Seager, who would go on to join Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only two-time World Series MVPs, squibbed a single to left field to lead off the seventh. Carter, hitting behind him in the lineup because Bochy surmised that Arizona manager Torey Lovullo would not use his best relievers — all right-handers — instead of attacking back-to-back left-handed hitters with a lefty reliever, doubled Seager to third. Garver smashed a fastball through a drawn-in infield. After 19 at-bats of futility, Texas needed only three to score the game’s first run.

After Josh Sborz, a 29-year-old with a career 5.08 ERA who emerged as Texas’ best of a thin relief corps this postseason, threw a scoreless eighth, Bochy approached him in the dugout, wary of throwing closer Jose Leclerc for a third consecutive day for the first time since July 26-28, 2019.

“You wanna finish it?” Bochy said.

“Let’s do it,” Sborz said.

The Rangers’ hitters were exceptionally good teammates in the top of the ninth. Jung and Lowe led off the inning with back-to-back singles against Arizona closer Paul Sewald, and both scored when a Heim single up the middle slinked underneath the glove of center fielder Alek Thomas and rolled to the wall. Semien followed by blasting his second home run in two nights, and Texas’ 1-0 lead was quintupled.

Sborz emerged for the ninth, struck out Geraldo Perdomo looking on a curveball, induced a popout from Corbin Carroll and ended the World Series by snapping Ketel Marte’s 20-game postseason hitting streak by snapping off a two-strike curveball that landed in the top of the strike zone. Marte stared at the pitch, and so began a celebration that would last deep into Thursday morning.

If there was one error made by Texas in the World Series, it was the team’s continued fixation with 1990s alt-rock band Creed. As the Rangers sprayed bubbly and doused one another with beer, “Higher” strained through the clubhouse speakers and provided the soundtrack for their revelry. Whatever they might lack in musical taste they made up for in baseball acumen and righting wrongs.

“This,” Scherzer said, “is baseball nirvana.”

He was not wrong. Carter, all of two months into his career, looked around and said: “How spoiled am I?” The answer was very — a fact that two other attendees of the party at the Biltmore know well.

Two hours after that locker room celebration, next to fire pits and underneath string lighting and surrounded by fountains, Adrian Beltre and Michael Young sat across from one another and reminisced. They played together on the 2011 Rangers, a team that wound up on the wrong side of one the greatest World Series games ever.

In the Metroplex, Game 6 are curse words. What’s a story of triumph in St. Louis is one of horror to Rangers fans: One strike away from a win, the Rangers gave up a two-run, score-tying, ninth-inning triple to David Freese, blew another two-run lead in the 10th and lost on a Freese home run in the 11th.

“It was the worst day of my life,” Beltre said.

Every day since, he said, he has carried it with him. Young concurred. The sting of the moment eventually faded into an ever-present ache. Nothing short of a championship would salve them.

No one in the clubhouse would dare suggest this reached the levels of Boston in 2004 or Chicago in 2016, but the Rangers have disappointed generations of people. This win, Beltre said, “takes a weight off my shoulders — off all our shoulders.”

About 20 feet away sat Bochy, holding court before the team serenaded him. The daughters of pitching coach Mike Maddux, who had never before won a World Series in his 30-year career playing and coaching in the major leagues, congratulated and thanked him. Coaches and scouts paid homage. Bochy deferred credit, aw-shucks as ever, even as he joined a list of the greatest managers in history — Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Joe McCarthy, Walter Alston and Joe Torre.

On the other side of the bar, Young held court with the front office. During games in Young’s suite, they’d developed a habit of high-fiving every good play — “positive touches,” they called it — and the camaraderie was clear. Winning a championship bonds people forever. Winning the first championship in the 63-year history of a franchise immortalizes them.

Which is why back inside at McArthur’s, Lowe asked for the music to be turned down so he could deliver a speech. He arrived via trade in 2021, and from that team, only Lowe, Garcia, Heim, Sborz, center fielder Leody Taveras and right-hander Dane Dunning were on the World Series roster. Lowe witnessed the birth of the plan, its execution and the fruit it bore. And it gave the Rangers, he said, “the best f—ing ships.”

He paused slightly before delivering perhaps an even better walk-off than Garcia’s home run that won Game 1.

“Friendships,” Lowe said, “and championships.”

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Pirates apologize, plan to re-add Clemente sign

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April 6, 2025

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Pirates apologize, plan to re-add Clemente sign

  • ESPN News Services

Apr 6, 2025, 03:24 PM ET

The Pirates announced Sunday that they will be adding the No. 21 logo back to the right field wall to honor Roberto Clemente at PNC Park after the franchise icon’s family expressed their unhappiness that the sign was removed for an advertisement.

“We did not intend to disrespect the legacy of Roberto Clemente by adding the advertisement to the pad in right field,” Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement.

“When we added the advertisement to the pad, it was an oversight not to keep the No. 21 logo. This is ultimately on me, not anyone else in the organization. It was an honest mistake. We will be adding the No. 21 logo back to the pad.”

Williams added: “We want to make sure that the Clemente family understands that we intended no disrespect to their father. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Clemente family and apologize to them and our fans for our honest mistake.”

The sign, which had been on the right-field wall since 2022, featured Clemente’s name and his No. 21 but it was replaced with an advertisement for Surfside, an alcoholic drink.

The right-field wall at PNC Park stands 21 feet high in honor of Clemente.

Earlier Sunday, Roberto Clemente Jr. expressed his family’s unhappiness in a prepared statement.

“This change was made without any communication or consultation with our family,” Clemente’s statement said in part. “While we appreciate that the Pirates acknowledged their failure to inform us, it reveals a broader issue: a lack of meaningful collaboration between the organization and on matters that are deeply personal and historically significant to us and the fans.

“The outpouring of support from fans in Pittsburgh and across the country has been overwhelming and deeply appreciated. It is clear that our father’s legacy continues to inspire and unite people, not only for his achievements on the field, but for the integrity and compassion he demonstrated off of it.

“We have always been open to building a sincere and lasting partnership with the Pirates, one grounded in respect and shared values,” the statement continued. “Our hope is that this moment serves as an opportunity for reflection, paving the way for a more thoughtful, transparent, and collaborative relationship moving forward. I intend to reach out to the Pirates directly to explore this further.”

Clemente spent his entire career with the Pirates from 1955 to 1972. He played in 15 All-Star Games while winning 12 Gold Glove awards, four batting titles and the 1966 National League MVP.

Clemente died in a plane crash off the coast of San Juan in his native Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve in 1972 while attempting to deliver supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame the following summer.

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LeBron, Michael Jordan top reactions to Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record

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April 6, 2025

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LeBron, Michael Jordan top reactions to Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky's NHL goals record

Alex Ovechkin has finally done it.

The Washington Capitals star set the NHL’s goals record on Sunday with a second-period power-play tally against the New York Islanders, breaking Wayne Gretzky’s mark.

Ovechkin tied the record after netting two goals against the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday. Gretzky set the goals record on March 23, 1994, while playing for the Los Angeles Kings. Ovechkin scored his 895th goal in his 1,487th game, while Gretzky scored 894 goals in 1,487 games.

A video compilation that included LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Simone Biles led reactions to Ovechkin’s milestone.

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Ranking the top 20 goals in Alex Ovechkin’s record-breaking career

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Ranking the top 20 goals in Alex Ovechkin's record-breaking career

  • Greg WyshynskiApr 6, 2025, 02:00 PM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

“The Gr8 Chase” is over. Alex Ovechkin is the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, surpassing the legendary Wayne Gretzky.

Ovechkin amassed this career total in a variety of ways. He had over 550 even-strength goals and 320 power-play goals, the majority scored from the fabled “Ovi spot.” He’s the leader in empty-net goals and overtime goals. Five of his goals came shorthanded, from a guy who has averaged eight seconds of penalty-killing time per game in his career.

But not every Ovechkin goal is created equally. Some are works of art; some are masterpieces. Some are important; some are career-defining.

Here are the top 20 goals in Ovechkin’s career, covering both the NHL regular season and the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Many of them have become highlight-reel mainstays, while some make this ranking because of their significance to Ovechkin’s legacy and story. Along the way you’ll hear from Ovechkin, his teammates, coaches and opponents about these classic moments during the first 895 goals of the Washington Capitals star’s career. Enjoy!

20. Dec. 18, 2015: Ovechkin shocks the Lightning

You could sense this one was imminent as Jason Chimera floated a juicy pass from the boards into the Lightning zone.

Ovi motored to collect the puck and then froze Tampa Bay defenseman Anton Stralman with a textbook curl-and-drag for a gorgeous power-play goal against Ben Bishop.

19. June 7, 2018: Ovechkin’s Stanley Cup Final moment

We’ve seen Ovechkin score this kind of power-play goal hundreds of times. But until Game 5 against the Golden Knights, we’d never seen him score one in a clinching game for a Stanley Cup championship, after a postseason worthy of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

“A lot of things were said at the end of last year in the press, Twitter, whatever,” said Barry Trotz, who coached that championship team. “And they’re hurtful, and I think he took it personally. He said, ‘I’m going to show you I’m still a great player.’ And he did.”

18. March 9, 2011: Ovechkin plays defense vs. the Oilers

Criticisms of Ovechkin’s defensive prowess have haunted him throughout his career, to the point where former Capitals coach Dale Hunter briefly tried to turn him into a shot blocker rather than a shot taker.

But Ovechkin had his moments on D, such as this play where he picked the pocket of Oilers defenseman Kurtis Foster on the forecheck to set up a 2-on-0 scoring chance and easily converted.

17. Oct. 5, 2005: Career goal No. 1

Where it all began. The Capitals opened their season at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets in front of an announced crowd of 16,325. Just 28 seconds after the Jackets took the lead in the second period, Ovechkin skated between the circles with his stick raised for a one-timer.

Dainius Zubrus found him, and Ovi blasted a shot past future trivia answer Pascal Leclaire for the first of many, many, many goals.

16. March 19, 2022: Ovechkin vs. Chicago (and Duncan Keith)

By the time Ovechkin schooled him on national television, future Hall of Fame defenseman Duncan Keith had already won a Norris Trophy and a Stanley Cup.

What he couldn’t do was stop this move from Ovechkin, who tantalizingly dangled the puck within Keith’s stick range before pulling it back through his legs and motoring around him for the goal, as three Blackhawks stood seemingly powerless around their net.

15. March 1, 2011: OT winner vs. Islanders

The NHL was playing 4-on-4 in overtime back in 2011, but Ovechkin was playing one-on-one against Frans Nielsen in this extra session against the Islanders.

Ovechkin turned the New York forward inside out with a burst of speed through the neutral zone. He then skated through a check attempt by Nielsen in the attacking zone before finishing this goal with a nasty backhander that goalie Nathan Lawson apparently didn’t know was in Ovi’s bag of tricks.

14. March 19, 2009: The ‘hot stick’ celebration

Ovechkin’s 50th goal in the 2008-09 season sparked one of the most memorable and controversial moments of his career: the “hot stick” celebration, as Ovechkin laid his lumber on the ice and warmed his gloves over its imaginary flames.

It was a moment commemorated in everything from bobblehead dolls to video game cutscenes. But “Hockey Night in Canada” analyst Don Cherry hated it, criticizing Ovechkin’s lack of “class” in showing up the Lightning and rookie goalie Mike McKenna.

Years later on the “I Was in Net For” podcast, McKenna admitted that he might have “slashed Ovechkin’s stick into the next ZIP code” had he been a league veteran at the time. But he also said he and Ovechkin talked it out about a week later.

“I remember just saying ‘Hi’ and him saying, ‘I did not mean to embarrass or disrespect you or anything. I thought we were having fun.’ He was apologetic about it, and you know what? I was totally cool with it,” McKenna said. “For him to even take that time to just be a human and say, ‘This is what I was feeling in the moment,’ I have a hard time holding that against anybody, especially if they can have the humility to think maybe it wasn’t nice or right.”

13. Nov. 20, 2014: The end boards goal vs. the Avalanche

This goal has a bit of everything that makes Ovechkin such a force. The speed through the neutral zone. The drag around defenseman Jan Hejda, followed by the brute force that had Hejda helplessly trying to put a body on him. Finally, the patience to stay with the play to collect the rebound and tuck it past goalie Reto Berra.

The only box not checked was a booming Ovechkin slap shot, as it went to the backhand to set up this sequence.

12. Oct. 10, 2015: Ovechkin schools Moore, Devils

Ovechkin’s first goal of the 2015-16 season landed him in the highlight reel and gave New Jersey Devils defenseman John Moore a harsh education. After speeding into the zone, Ovechkin faked a move to his right and dangled to his left, leaving Moore to fecklessly wave his stick at the Capitals star. Ovechkin closed in on goalie Keith Kinkaid and deposited a shot over his glove and into the far top corner of the net.

“I think there he’s going to cut to the middle,” Moore told The Star-Ledger at the time. “To his credit, I think he kind of sold that. I could have a better stick and maybe even a better gap. You give him an inch and he’ll capitalize on it. I’ll learn from that.”

11. May 1, 2018: The double-tap goal

The Capitals won their first Stanley Cup championship after finally overcoming their tormentors from Pittsburgh in the semifinals. Ovechkin scored one of his finest goals to win Game 3 of that series. Nicklas Backstrom did his usual yeoman’s work on the play, generating a turnover in the defensive zone to spring a 2-on-1. He fed Ovechkin across the ice, and Ovechkin clanged a shot off the post behind Matt Murray … and then popped the aerial rebound into the open net.

“I honestly think that from the first time we started playing with each other, we were just a good match. I was more of a playmaker and he was a goal scorer,” Backstrom said recently. “I mean, I just think he loves to score goals. That’s what’s been driving him for all these years.”

10. Jan. 19, 2006: Ovechkin goes full throttle vs. the Blues

As Capitals announcer Joe Beninati said it best: Ovechkin goes “full throttle” through the neutral zone and then absolutely flummoxes veteran St. Louis Blues defenseman Eric Weinrich before putting the puck through goalie Curtis Sanford.

In a 2022 interview with The Athletic, Ovechkin actually ranked this goal as his second favorite from a list of 10 compiled by the NHL.

“I had full speed and make a good move,” he said. “It was a total different game than now. It was more wide-open. Now it’s now more compact.”

Ovechkin also noted that this goal came immediately after another classic goal he scored against Phoenix on Jan. 16 that you might be able to read more about later on this list …

9. Jan. 25, 2014: Ovechkin vs. Canadiens juggle

In which we discover Ovechkin can juggle, too.

Ovi collects a rebound from a Carey Price save midair in back of the Montreal net. He hits it with his stick, juggles it off his stick again to nudge it closer to the goal mouth, then taps it past Price for a power-play goal, raising his arms and bellowing in celebration.

“You’re not going to see a prettier goal from a so-called ‘hands guy’ in the NHL,” Capitals announcer Craig Laughlin said.

8. Feb. 4, 2010: The one-handed classic

The 500th point of Ovechkin’s career, this goal crystallizes the futility of trying to stop the Russian Machine when he’s got the magic working.

Backstrom finds him in full stride. Rangers defenseman Michal Rozsival reaches out with his arm and attempts to impede Ovechkin. The referee’s arm goes up and then almost immediately points to the net as Ovechkin dangled through the hold and sent a one-handed shot — with his left arm, no less — at the pads of Henrik Lundqvist. The puck glanced off King Henrik’s stick and popped into the net.

Ovechkin would say after the game that it was, to his recollection, the first goal he ever scored with one hand on his stick because “my hand is not strong enough” to score that way. As the New York Times headline said after the Capitals’ 6-5 win: “Rangers Surrender Game and Stage to Ovechkin Show.”

7. April 6, 2025: Ovechkin eclipses Gretzky

At 12:34 of the second period against the New York Islanders on April 6, Ovechkin finally eclipsed “The Great One” with his 895th career goal. He could have broken the record in his previous game at home had he completed a hat trick against the Chicago Blackhawks, but Ovechkin vowed not set the mark on an empty netter. Instead, history was made with a vintage Ovi goal: a blast from the top of the circle on the power play that Ovechkin followed with a full belly slide down the ice in celebration.

The quality of this goal never mattered. The enormity of the moment in sports history necessitated its inclusion in the top 10, as Ovechkin netted career goal No. 895 to pass Gretzky and become the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer.

This is what Gretzky wanted. He encouraged Ovechkin, whether it was in interviews or private text messages during the chase. It’s a lesson Gretzky learned when he was chasing the record himself, back when Hockey Hall of Famer Gordie Howe owned it.

“My dad said, ‘You know what, somebody is going to break your record. And when he does, make sure you are as much a gentleman to him as Gordie Howe is to you. You smile, you shake his hand, and you are proud of what you accomplished. It’s better for the game,'” Gretzky told Sportsnet in 2020.

The game has never been better, whether it’s the speed or the defense or the goaltending or the coaching or the league’s overall talent level. That Ovechkin shattered this record, in this era, is nothing short of extraordinary.

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Alex Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s goals record

Alex Ovechkin scores on the power play for his 895th career goal, surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s record.

6. Dec. 26, 2008: Ovechkin slugs Buffalo

One word: “Buffaslug.”

Ovechkin’s 2008 instant classic goal was scored against a Buffalo Sabres team wearing one of the most maligned jerseys in NHL history, as the franchise forwent its classic crest for a new design featuring an angry cashew. We can only assume Ovi was making them pay for their crime against fashion with this end-to-end beauty.

He starts by tipping the puck away from a Sabres forechecker and then he’s off to the races. Buffalo defenseman Henrik Tallinder does everything he can to track down Ovechkin and appears to take the puck away from him, but it turns out Ovechkin had it the entire time, like one of those pranks where a dollar bill is tied to a string. Ovechkin shoots as he falls to the ice, beating Patrick Lalime before sliding into him like a curling stone.

5. May 2, 2015: Ovechkin from his knee vs. the Rangers

Another playoff goal, during one of several postseason meetings between Ovechkin and the New York Rangers, and easily one of his most impressive given the personnel involved.

That’s Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi on defense for the Rangers, one of the league’s best pairings at that time. That’s Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist in goal, looking behind him before looking to the rafters. Ovechkin split the defense, causing the Rangers blueliners to collide like a closing door. The Capitals star slipped through a crack but his leg got caught. He fell to his knee and snapped a shot before falling on his stomach.

Teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov felt the goal was “sick,” according to the New York Post. “I said a couple of bad words in Russian but I said ‘sick,'” he said.

4. Dec. 20, 2014: Too ‘dangle-licious’ for you

This goal against the New Jersey Devils inspired Capitals play-by-play announcer Joe Beninati to coin the term “dangle-licious” to describe the tally.

Ovechkin streaked through the neutral zone toward Devils defenseman Jon Merrill, who was probably breathing a sigh of relief knowing that teammate Travis Zajac was skating back to offer support. But as Zajac reached for the puck with his stick, Ovechkin toe-dragged around Merrill and headed to the crease. Goalie Cory Schneider had the bottom of the net closed off as Ovechkin fell to the ice … only to have the Capitals star backhand the puck under the crossbar for another epic goal.

“He was flying tonight. You can see why he’s such a dangerous player,” Schneider said. “He made a great move. I stayed with him and I thought I had him. He was able to elevate it in tight like that and finish it off. I stuck with him and I thought I had that one. He made a great play on the end.”

3. April 24, 2009: Ovechkin playoff goal vs. the Rangers

Straight-up video game moves from Ovechkin in this postseason goal against the Rangers.

After a turnover by Nikolai Zherdev, Ovechkin collects the puck and streaks down the ice. Chris Drury attempts to slow him up and gets deked into oblivion. Derek Morris makes an attempt, only to have Ovechkin dangle through his legs. Aaron Voros finally catches up to Ovechkin only to have the Capitals star smack the puck with his backhand to put it past Lundqvist.

“My backhand was terrible. Lucky bounce,” Ovechkin said at the time.

Well, lucky for him.

2. Feb. 18, 2009: The ‘Hamrlik goal’

In 2011, veteran defenseman Roman Hamrlik signed as a free agent with the Capitals, becoming Ovechkin’s teammate. Which naturally begs the question: Did they ever talk about this goal?

Hamrlik was a member of the Montreal Canadiens back in 2009. He chased the puck to the red line where Ovechkin beat him in a race. Ovi poked the puck off the boards and around Hamrlik before pulling off a spin-o-rama to skate into the Montreal zone. Kyle Chipchura back checked to catch him, knocking Ovechkin to the ice. But as the Capitals star slid toward Carey Price, he flicked the puck on the forehand past the Montreal goaltender for a spectacular goal. Ovechkin sat up, raised his arms and waved for his teammates to join him in celebration.

Wes Johnson, the Capitals’ longtime public address announcer, was seated right behind the glass where Ovechkin made his initial move.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, he passed the puck to himself.’ He spun the defenseman and then he duped the goalie as he’s falling down the ice,” he said. “It was the most spectacular goal I had seen in my 25 years of doing this live.”

1. Jan. 16, 2006: ‘The Goal’

What’s the point of a ranking if not to spark conversation and debate? To that end, any number of Ovechkin’s nimble, flailing classics could have made the top spot, subverting expectations. That would be a stunt. That would be disingenuous.

“The Goal” is his “Citizen Kane,” a masterpiece announcing the arrival of a true artist. When we close our eyes and think about any of the nearly 900 goals that have defined Ovechkin’s career, our mind’s eye will focus on that game in Glendale, Arizona, and what Sportsnet ranked as the greatest goal of the 21st century.

It was Ovechkin’s rookie season, one in which he’d hit 30 goals by the middle of January. He collected the puck at center ice and skated in on Phoenix Coyotes defenseman Paul Mara. He tried to deke Mara, but the defenseman wasn’t biting, raising his arms to try and knock Ovechkin off the puck. He was successful in that Ovechkin toppled to the ice. He was unsuccessful in that Ovechkin was still near enough to the puck.

As the Capitals star rolled onto his back, he had one hand on his stick to corral the puck and send a desperate shot to the Coyotes net. Goalie Brian Boucher flung his stick out as a last line of defense, only to look back at the cage as the puck glided across the line.

In the stands watching “The Goal”? An 8-year-old Coyotes fan named Auston Matthews, who would be inspired to score a few hundred of his own in the NHL. Behind the Coyotes’ bench watching “The Goal”? Gretzky, Phoenix’s head coach and the NHL’s leading career goal-scorer — at the time.

Early in the game, Beninati noted that Ovechkin was only 860 goals behind Gretzky’s record total of 894. Laughlin laughed at the notion that a rookie was beginning down the path to catch The Great One.

“Good luck, Mr. Ovechkin,” Beninati said. “Good luck.”

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