Ranking the top 20 goals in Alex Ovechkin’s record-breaking career
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Greg Wyshynski
“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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Bill Connelly
Back in May, ESPN’s team of college football reporters voted on the sport’s best coaches for 2025. The results were about as you would expect: Start with the three active guys who have most recently won national titles (Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney), move on to guys with recent top-five finishes or national title game appearances (Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Penn State’s James Franklin), then squeeze in a couple of long-term overachievers at the end (Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell).
The rankings made plenty of sense, but I couldn’t help but notice that the top eight coaches on the list all work for some of the richest, most well-supported programs in the country. There are some epic pressures associated with leading these programs — just ask Day — but there are also major advantages. It might only take a good head coach to do great things in those jobs, while at programs with smaller alumni bases or lesser historic track records, it might take a great coach to do merely good things. They’re such different jobs that it’s almost impossible to even know how to compare the performance of, say, Matt Campbell to Steve Sarkisian. Could Campbell have led Texas to back-to-back CFP semifinals? Could Sark have brought ISU its first two AP top-15 finishes?
The May rankings made me want to see if there were a way to apply stats to the conversation. If you think about it, we’re basically measuring two things when we’re gauging coach performance: overall quality and quality relative to the expectations of the job. I thought it would be fun to come up with a blend of those two things and see what the results told us.
Performance versus expectation
Gauging overall performance is easy enough. You could simply look at win percentage, and it would tell you quite a bit. From 2015 to 2024, the active coaches with the best FBS win percentages (minimum 30 games) were Day (.870), Lanning (.854), Swinney (.850) and Smart (.847). All ranked high in the May rankings. I tend to want to get fancy and use my SP+ ratings whenever possible, and they tell a similar tale. Looking at average SP+ ratings for the past decade, the top active coaches are Day (30.4), Smart (27.0), Lanning (22.3), Swinney (21.9), Franklin (20.3) and Freeman (19.0). They’re all in the May top 10 too.
Again, though, all of those coaches are employed by college football royalty. (Granted, Swinney gets bonus points for helping Clemson turn into college football royalty, but still.) Isn’t it more impressive to win 11 regular-season games at Indiana, as Curt Cignetti did in 2024, than to go 10-4 like Swinney did? Isn’t it probably harder to finish 12th in SP+ at SMU, as Rhett Lashlee did in 2024, than to finish fifth like Franklin did?
I’ve begun to incorporate teams’ performance against long-term averages into my preseason SP+ projections, and it seems we could use a very similar concept to evaluate coach performances. For each year someone is a head coach, we could compare his team’s SP+ rating for that season to the school’s average from the 20 previous years. (If the school is newer to FBS and doesn’t have a 20-year average, we can use whatever average exists to date. And for a program’s first FBS season, we can simply compare the team’s SP+ rating to the overall average for first-year programs.)
By this method, the 10 best single-season coaching performances of the past 20 years include Art Briles at Baylor in 2013-14, Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010, Mark Mangino at Kansas in 2007, Bobby Petrino at Louisville in 2006, Greg Schiano at Rutgers in 2006 and Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina in 2020 — legendary seasons of overachievement — plus perhaps lesser-remembered performances such as Gary Andersen at Utah State in 2012, Matt Wells at Utah State in 2018 and Brian Kelly at Cincinnati in 2007.
As far as single-season overachievement goes, that’s a pretty good list. And if we look at a longer-term sample — coaches who have led FBS programs for at least nine of the past 20 years — here are the 15 best performance versus baseline averages.
(Note: I’m looking only at performances within the past 20 years, so Nick Saban’s work at LSU (2000-04) or Michigan State (1995-99), for instance, isn’t included. I also went with nine years instead of 10 so Smart’s current nine-year run at Georgia could be included in the sample.)
Best performance vs. historic baseline averages for the past 20 years (min. nine seasons):
1. Chris Petersen, Boise State (2006-13) and Washington (2014-19): +12.8 points above historic baseline
2. Art Briles, Houston (2005-07) and Baylor (2008-15): +12.8
3. Gary Pinkel, Missouri (2005-15): +12.5
4. Nick Saban, Alabama (2007-23): +10.7
5. Jeff Monken, Army (2014-24): +10.3
6. Willie Fritz, Georgia Southern (2014-15), Tulane (2016-23) and Houston (2024): +10.0
7. Lance Leipold, Buffalo (2015-20) and Kansas (2021-24): +9.5
8. Bobby Petrino, Louisville (2005-06), Arkansas (2008-11), Western Kentucky (2013) and Louisville (2014-18): +9.5
9. Gary Patterson, TCU (2005-21): +8.6
10. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford (2007-10) and Michigan (2015-23): +8.5
11. Blake Anderson, Arkansas State (2014-20) and Utah State (2021-23): +8.5
12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina (2005-15): +8.2
13. Greg Schiano, Rutgers (2005-11 and 2020-24): +7.8
14. Jeff Brohm, Western Kentucky (2014-16), Purdue (2017-22) and Louisville (2023-24): +7.7
15. David Cutcliffe, Duke (2008-21): +7.7
If we are looking for pure overachievement and aren’t in the mood to reward coaches for winning at schools that always win, this is again a pretty good list. Petersen was spectacular at both Boise State and Washington, while Briles, Pinkel, Monken and Patterson all won big at schools that hadn’t won big in quite a while. (Monken, in fact, is still winning big.) Blake Anderson’s presence surprised me, but most of the names here are extremely well regarded. And Saban’s presence at No. 4, despite coaching at one of the bluest of blue-blood programs, is a pretty good indicator of just how special his reign at Alabama was.
Still, looking only at performance against expectations obviously sells coaches like Saban and Smart short. Saban is probably the best head coach in the sport’s history but ranks only fourth on the above list. Meanwhile, Smart has overachieved by only 6.0 points above the historic baseline in his nine seasons at Georgia thanks to the high bar predecessor Mark Richt set. But he has also won two national titles, overcoming Georgia’s history of falling just short and at least briefly surpassing Saban as well. If our goal is to measure coaching prowess, we need to account for raw quality too.
The best coaches of the past 20 years
If we combine raw SP+ averages with this performance versus baseline average, we can come up with a pretty decent overall coach rating. We can debate the weights involved, but here’s what an overall rating looks like if we use 60% performance versus baseline and 40% SP+ average:
I always like to say that numbers make great starting points for a conversation, and this is a pretty good starting point. Anyone reading this would probably tweak this list to suit their own preferences, and while it probably isn’t surprising that Pinkel is in the top 20, seeing him fourth, ahead of Meyer, Harbaugh and others, is a bit jarring. (I promise that this Mizzou alum didn’t put his finger on the scales.) Regardless, this is a fun mix of guys who won big at big schools and guys who won pretty big at pretty big schools. That was the goal of the exercise.
Maybe the most confusing coach in this top 20 is Dabo Swinney. Clemson had enjoyed just one AP top-five finish in its history before he took over 16 years ago, and he has led the Tigers to 2 national titles, 6 top-five finishes and 7 CFP appearances. And while they haven’t had a true, title-caliber team in a few years, they’ve still won two of the past three ACC crowns. How is he only 10th?
The main culprit for Swinney’s lower-than-expected ranking is his recent performance — it has been inferior to both national title standards and his standards. Since we’re using a team’s performance against 20-year averages, a lot of this rating is basically comparing Swinney to himself, and he hasn’t quite measured up of late.
From 2012 to 2020, Swinney’s average rating was an incredible 17.0, which would have ranked second to only Saban on the list above. But his average over the past four seasons is only 3.6.
Part of what made Saban so impressive was how long he managed to clear the bar he himself was setting in Tuscaloosa. Per SP+, his best team was his 14th — the 2020 team that won his sixth and final title at Bama. While Swinney was basically matching Saban’s standard 12 years into their respective tenures, Saban continued at a particularly high level for at least three more years while Swinney fell off the pace.
Comparing Saban, Swinney and Smart year by year, we see that Smart was hitting Saban-esque levels seven seasons into his tenure, but his rating has fallen off each of the past two seasons. Even Saban slipped starting in Year 15, even though he still had nearly the best program in the sport for a couple more years.
The best coaches of 2025
Six of the top seven coaches on the list above are either retired or coaching in the NFL now, so let’s focus our gaze specifically on the guys who will be leading college teams out onto the field in 2025. Using the same 20-year sample as above — which cuts off the tenure of Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz but includes everything else — here’s how the current crop of FBS head coaches has performed at the FBS level. We’ll break this into two samples: the guys who have coached for at least four years in this sample and the guys who have coached between one and three years.
Our May top 10 list featured eight guys who have been head coaches for at least four years; all eight are represented on this list, including four of the top five. (Sarkisian has averaged a 13.8 rating over the past two seasons, which is a top-five level, but his overall run as head coach at Washington, USC and Texas has featured a number of ups and downs.)
Maybe the name that jumps out the most above is Josh Heupel. I think anyone would consider him a very good coach (he’s 37-15 overall), but he doesn’t exactly draw any “best in the game?” hype. He benefited from a positive situation at UCF, where he inherited a rising program from Scott Frost in 2019 and produced big ratings in his first couple of years on the job. But his average rating at Tennessee has been a solid 14.0 as well; the Volunteers had been up and down for years, but he has produced four top-20 SP+ ratings in a row and two top-10s in the past three years. He might not be getting the credit he deserves for that.
All in all, I enjoy this list. We’ve got mostly predictable names at the top, we’ve got some oldies but (mostly) goodies spread throughout, and we’ve got room for up-and-comers like Jeff Traylor too. This 60-40 approach probably doesn’t give enough respect to the Chris Creightons of the world — the Eastern Michigan coach has overachieved against EMU’s baseline by 7.2 points per season, which is a fantastic average, but at such a hard job, his Eagles have still averaged only a minus-14.4 SP+ rating during his tenure. Still, this is a mostly solid approach.
Now let’s talk about some small-sample all-stars.
Four of the top six of this list coached in the College Football Playoff last season, and while the guys ranked fifth and sixth made our May top 10 list, the guys who won big at SMU and Indiana, not Oregon and Notre Dame, take priority here. I was honestly floored that Curt Cignetti didn’t make our top 10 list; he led James Madison to one of the best FBS debuts ever, going 19-4 in 2022-23, then he moved to Bloomington and led Indiana — INDIANA! — to 11 wins in his first season there.
On this list, however, Rhett Lashlee tops even Cignetti. I’m not sure we’ve talked enough about the job he has done at SMU. He, too, inherited a rising program, as Sonny Dykes had done some of the nitty-gritty work in getting the Mustangs back on their feet (with help from an offensive coordinator named Rhett Lashlee). SMU hadn’t produced a top-50 ranking since 1985 before Dykes did so for three straight seasons (2019-21). But after holding steady in his first year replacing Dykes, Lashlee’s program has ignited: 12-2 and 24th in SP+ in 2023, then 11-3 and 12th in 2024. Looking specifically at the 2021-24 range, as the game has undergone so much change, Lashlee’s 16.8 average rating ranks second overall, behind only Smart (18.0) and ahead of Kiffin (15.1), Cignetti (15.0), Odom (15.0), Heupel (14.0) and Day (13.9).
Along with quite a few others here, Lashlee made my 2024 list of 30 coaches who would define the next decade; he’d definitely still be on the list — along with new additions like GJ Kinne and perhaps Fran Brown — if I remade that list today.
It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!
Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.
While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?
We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.
MLB Home Run Derby field
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)
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Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?
Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.
Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.
Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.
His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.
Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.
Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.
Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?
Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.
Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.
Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.
Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.
Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.
Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?
Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.
Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.
What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?
Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.
Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!
Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.
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