How Alex Ovechkin became hockey’s greatest goal-scorer

DAVID PERRON, Ottawa Senators ahead: Generally from the bench and the place his spot is on the facility play, you see sort of the right line for his one-timer and the way he’s capable of shoot round our bodies, shoot round the whole lot. Guys are so good now at blocking photographs and the goalies are extraordinarily good. Getting it round that first layer, he does a very good job of that.

TKACHUK: I feel now, and I really feel like for his entire profession, he’s at all times been marked and he at all times has a man in his again pocket mainly, however he simply finds a strategy to get it finished. Us groups or coaches, gamers, aren’t dumb sufficient to depart him open, however even just a bit couple of toes that he’s open and also you assume you’re masking him, he nonetheless finds a strategy to rating.

PERRON: It’s powerful to say how he does it when everybody is aware of he’ll be there.

CLARK: It’s one factor to do it your rookie 12 months. It’s one factor to do it for a few years. However to do it for 20 years with everyone on the ice understanding he’s there and the place he’s going to take a one-timer from, and it nonetheless goes in? That’s simply superb.

Many gamers have tried Ovechkin’s stick, hoping they’ll get the identical sort of zip out of it. It seems they can’t.

MARTIN FEHERVARY, teammate: His curve is actually like a golf membership, like a 60 diploma or no matter. I don’t understand how he can shoot with that, and it’s an absolute bomb.

CLARK: I keep in mind from the start he was utilizing CCMs and he had that massive hook curve on it, and a really whippy stick. I had a whippy stick to a heel curve, however the mixture he had, I don’t assume I’ve ever seen something prefer it. He had such a banana curve. Huge, and proper within the center.

CARLSON: I wouldn’t even know the right way to play with that factor. It’s small — very small for a man that massive. When he began within the league, you couldn’t use that curve, it was unlawful. So, as soon as they stopped doing that, it’s been the curve he’s used for a very long time.