- Only 14 of the 64 players ever taken first overall have won the Stanley Cup with the team that drafted them
- Alex Ovechkin’s 14-year gap between draft day and the 2018 title is the longest of that group
- Read below for the full list, plus where Taylor Hall’s 2026 championship fits in
Alex Ovechkin owns a piece of NHL history that almost never comes up.
Sixty-four players have gone first overall since the league held its first draft in 1963, when Montreal took Garry Monahan. Just 14 of them have won the Stanley Cup with the club that picked them, and nobody on that list waited longer than Ovechkin. Washington drafted him in 2004 and finally raised the Cup in 2018, a gap of 14 years.
Steven Stamkos sits closest behind him at 12 years in Tampa Bay. Mike Modano needed 11 to get there with a franchise that had relocated from Minnesota to Dallas along the way.
Here’s the moment Ovechkin ended the wait in Las Vegas:
| Draft | Player | Team | Cup | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Réjean Houle | Canadiens | 1971 | 2 |
| 1971 | Guy Lafleur | Canadiens | 1973 | 2 |
| 2007 | Patrick Kane | Blackhawks | 2010 | 3 |
| 2005 | Sidney Crosby | Penguins | 2009 | 4 |
| 1968 | Michel Plasse | Canadiens | 1973 | 5 |
| 1998 | Vincent Lecavalier | Lightning | 2004 | 6 |
| 2003 | Marc-André Fleury | Penguins | 2009 | 6 |
| 1973 | Denis Potvin | Islanders | 1980 | 7 |
| 1984 | Mario Lemieux | Penguins | 1991 | 7 |
| 2013 | Nathan MacKinnon | Avalanche | 2022 | 9 |
| 2014 | Aaron Ekblad | Panthers | 2024 | 10 |
| 1988 | Mike Modano | Stars | 1999 | 11 |
| 2008 | Steven Stamkos | Lightning | 2020 | 12 |
| 2004 | Alex Ovechkin | Capitals | 2018 | 14 |
Taylor Hall is the newest name in the wider version of this club. Carolina beat Vegas in the 2026 Final back in June, 16 seasons after Edmonton called Hall’s name at the top of the 2010 draft.
He got there with his seventh franchise, so he misses the cut on the list above. Hall still made it count with 19 points (seven goals, 12 assists) in 19 playoff games and a second-place finish in Conn Smythe voting.
The man who beat Hall for that trophy carries a longer wait of his own, measured a different way. Jordan Staal went 17 years between his 2009 Cup in Pittsburgh and this one in Raleigh, the biggest gap between championships anybody has ever posted.
Twenty first overall picks have won a Cup somewhere. The six who did it after changing addresses are Hall, Erik Johnson, Joe Murphy, Rob Ramage, Bobby Smith and Rick Green.
Having one around helps. Thirteen of the 21 champions crowned since the salary cap arrived in 2005-06 had at least one former No. 1 pick on the roster, and 18 of those 21 Finals featured one somewhere in the series.
Ovechkin is heading into his 22nd season in Washington. That 2018 banner is still the only one the Capitals have ever hung.
