When Wayne Gretzky retired in 1999 with 894 NHL goals, hardly anyone would have imagined that his record could be broken. Clearly no one told Alex Ovechkin that! With the Capitals star surpassing the Great One’s goal tally just days ago, Ovechkin has achieved the impossible, breaking a 26-year-old record that many thought couldn’t be done. But that’s not the only record that Gretzky set over the course of his illustrious career. With Gretzky’s goals record broken, fans debated if another one of his historic records might ever be.
Yes, we’re talking about that absurd points record of his. To refresh your memory, Gretzky recorded a mind-bending 2,857 points in 20 NHL seasons. The goal record may be all Ovechkin, but with 1,619 points to his name, Gretzky has him beat by quite the margin (1,238 to be exact) in the points department. And with Ovechkin being more of a pure goalscorer to Gretzky’s playmaker (among another 1,238 shaped reason), this is one record we can confidently say we won’t be seeing Ovi vie for.
But with the end of the Gr8 Chase, the attention shifted to the remaining Gretzky records up for grabs, which included the points record. The conversation was sparked by the official NHL account on X, asking whether Gretzky could be surpassed here.
We have to ask… pic.twitter.com/Aki9hPRDju
— NHL (@NHL) April 8, 2025
Interestingly, no player apart from Gretzky has broken the 2000-point barrier in the NHL. The second-best player in this regard is Jaromir Jagr, who has 1,921 points in the league, nowhere near Gretzky’s number. As for active players, the one closest to Gretzky is Sidney Crosby, 9th place on the leaderboard, with 1,683 points, which really is not very close at all. Followed by Crosby is Ovechkin in 11th, and then there’s a pretty big drop-off before we reach Evgeni Malkin in 31st (1,344 points) and Patrick Kane (1,339 points), right on his heels at 32nd. And to round out this top 5 is Anze Kopitar, in 41st place with 1,273 points.
Which is all to put into perspective just how amazing/spectacular/massive/awesome/gargantuan/ridiculous (you choose) Gretzky’s points total is. Even if you consider Jagr, he was 45 years old when he left the NHL; Gretzky was only 38 when he retired, meaning he racked up those points in a significantly shorter timespan. It’s the Mount Everest of records in the NHL, and naturally, fans heavily doubted whether it could ever be broken.
Nothing is certain except death, taxes, and Wayne Gretzky’s points record
The Great One was one of the rare all-round players on the ice. His creativity was a cut above the rest, and his finishing skills were sublime. While Ovechkin does have great goal-scoring skills, his creative play isn’t superior to Gretzky’s. Thus, a fan responded to the post with, “Nope … it’s THE most Unbreakable Sports Record of modern times as we discussed on @anerdodyssey.” When you look at the active players “contending” for the record, it becomes clear why it’s considered so unbreakable. There’s a wide, wide gulf between Gretzky and everyone else.
However, a few fans debated about the difference in the eras when Gretzky played and the current times. One fan felt that it was easy to score and assist back then, saying, “Not unless they remove 90% of the goalie pads and bring in goalies working 2 jobs like Gretzky got to play against.” They felt that a like-for-like comparison was impossible as the two eras had massive differences.
On the other hand, a fan had a solution to compare the two generations. The fan wrote, “According to Grok, even adjusted for era, he’d still be at about 2,300 points. So, no.” Even an adjusted Wayne Gretzky record is no match for other NHLers, yet again demonstrating how dominant a player he was, and how incredible his points total is.
Meanwhile, another X user was unsure whether anyone could break Gretzky’s points record in the future, despite the goals record falling. “I said no one would break his GOALS record…boy was I wrong lol. I can’t see his ASSIST or POINTS record getting broken. That being said….never say never,” wrote a fan, who didn’t want to definitively say no after the “impossible” goals record was broken.
Lastly, a fan took a cheeky jab at the Maple Leafs, suggesting that the team’s fans and media would feel that some of their star players could break this huge record. The fan wrote, “Oh I am sure before the end of the day all the Leaf media and fans will be writing in and saying Matthews and Marner will.” But let’s be real, the two are far behind in the race (not even in the top 100) and unlikely to even come close to Wayne Gretzky’s points tally.
For once NHL fans appeared to be united. But do you think that the Great One’s points record in the NHL could ever be broken? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The post NHL Fans Claim One Wayne Gretzky Record That Alex Ovechkin or Others Cannot Break appeared first on EssentiallySports.