- Matthews has 428 goals in 689 career games, one more than Ovechkin had at the same mark
- Ovechkin scored 502 more goals after his own 689th game
- Read below for the two injury-shortened seasons that closed the gap
Auston Matthews is still ahead of Alex Ovechkin. By one goal.
Through 689 career games, Matthews has scored 428 times. Ovechkin sat at 427 through his own 689th. That single goal is the whole margin between the best goal-scoring start of this generation and the one that produced the all-time record.
The gap used to be a lot more comfortable. Matthews scored 60 goals in 73 games in 2021-22, then 69 in 81 in 2023-24, a total nobody had reached since Ovechkin put up 65 in 2007-08.
Two seasons went sideways after that. Matthews managed 33 goals in 67 games in 2024-25, then 27 in 60 last year, his first campaign under a point per game since his rookie season and the first time he finished short of both 30 goals and 60 points.
The end came early. Matthews tore his MCL on a knee-on-knee hit from Anaheim’s Radko Gudas during a 6-4 win on March 12, and Toronto ruled him out for the rest of the season the following night:
Gudas got five games for it. Matthews had surgery in New York on a 12-week timeline, and the Leafs missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015-16.
Ovechkin never hit that kind of wall. His own games 602 through 760 produced 51 goals in 78 contests, then 53 in 81.
He piled up 502 more goals after his 689th game. Last season, at 40 years old, he scored 32 times and pushed his career total to 929, leaving him 11 short of Wayne Gretzky’s combined regular season and playoff mark.
Take a look at the night he became the first player to reach 900:
Matthews turns 29 in September and is coming off knee surgery. He owns the one-goal lead. Ovechkin needed another 884 games to build everything that came after it.
