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SIMMONS SAYS: It's tough to label Ovie as the NHL's greatest goal-scorer

While no doubt a hockey treasure, Capitals captain not the best to do it

Published Oct 11, 2026  •  Last updated 19 hours ago  •  8 minute read

Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin squirts water during warm up before taking on the Calgary Flames last season. Photo by Darren Makowichuk /Postmedia

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Alexander Ovechkin has the most goals in National Hockey League history — but does that make him the greatest goal-scorer of all time?

Emmitt Smith ran for more yards than Barry Sanders or Walter Payton: Who was the better running back?

A somewhat enhanced Barry Bonds hit more home runs than Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth: Which slugger would you rather have?

As Ovechkin races to the finish line of his marvelous career, there will be much conversation as to where he ranks all-time as a player and as a goal-scorer.

And much conversation also will be about how we should view his troubling political slants.

You can dislike him and believe the company he keeps is rather distasteful, but you can’t dispute the hockey accomplishments. You can, however, attach context to his goal-scoring.

Ovechkin is not the best, or the most natural goal-scorer I’ve ever seen and that’s not in any way a slight on him. Mike Bossy had a certain touch playing alongside Bryan Trottier with the championship New York Islanders teams that made him different from everyone else. He scored at .762 per game, the best in hockey history.

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Right behind him would be Mario Lemieux, who never gets the big-picture attention his career is deserving of. Lemieux was an absolute natural, a giant with the softest hands and the sweetest moves: Had he been motivated the way Wayne Gretzky was and as healthy as Gretzky was, he would own most of hockey’s records today. For all he scored, Gretzky wasn’t what you’d call a natural goal-scorer. He scored the record 92 one year, but also had 120 assists.

The one scorer I wonder about — and I saw him only near the end of his career — is Bobby Hull. He missed seven NHL seasons when he signed with the WHA. He played only 1,036 games in Chicago and piled up 610 goals at a time when goal-scoring was far more difficult. He had five 50-goal seasons when next to nobody was doing that.

There is no doubt that the retiring Ovechkin is a hockey treasure, a player for the ages. But the greatest of all goal-scorers? Not from these eyes, not at this time.

You wouldn’t know this by hanging around Toronto much, but the NBA Raptors franchise is valued at 33 percent more than the Maple Leafs. A recent Sportico report has the Raptors worth $6.4 billion; the NHL’s most valuable franchise, the Leafs, $4.8 billion … For the record, Kawhi Leonard’s salary this season will be equal to or greater than the salaries of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Sergei Bobrovsky, Darren Raddysh, Morgan Rielly, Gavin McKenna and Easton Cowan. And yet, everywhere I go — grocery store, barber shop, local deli, dentist — all anybody wants to talk about is the Leafs. The excitement in the early season is rather remarkable considering the club had five points in its first five games under new coach Jim Hiller and new GM John Chayka. That’s an 84-point pace in the new 84-game season, which would miss the playoffs by about 10 points … Ed Belfour did not start well with the Maple Leafs when he signed as a free agent in 2002. He won one of his first five starts. He got injured early and missed some games, but went on to have a spectacular season, losing just 20 of his 62 starts, with a 2.26 goals against average and a .927 save percentage. Bobrovsky, at 38, is one year older than Belfour was when he signed in Toronto. He finally won in his fourth start on Saturday night, but still owns a 2.97 goals against average. The adjustment is never easy for goaltenders of this vintage and quality. One day, Bobrovsky will join Belfour in the Hockey Hall of Fame. But remember, Belfour was booed early on with the Leafs. He then played the best two seasons in goal that Toronto has seen in the modern era.

Boo-hoo to the New York Yankees fans whining over another dismal playoff defeat. Our lives should all be as horrible as theirs. Since the Blue Jays most recently won the World Series, the Yankees have celebrated five championships, and lost in the Series three other times. Their most recent losing season was 1992, the year Toronto won its first World Series. On average, the past 10 years, the Yankees have won 93 games. They’ve missed the post-season once. In the past decade, the Jays have played in six playoff rounds, winning two of them. The Yanks have played in 17 rounds. The standard for one franchise is not the same as the other. It’s World Series or bust every years for the Yankees. It’s get in the last wild card or bust for the Jays … Last season, the Jays finished 17 games ahead of Tampa Bay. This year, they finished 19 games behind them. That’s a 36-game flip in 12 months. The Rays payroll this first-place season was $112 million less than the Blue Jays spent. The Jays spend Yankees-type money without similar results … There is going to be a baseball lockout on Dec. 1. The fight, as always, will be about the introduction of a salary cap. Hockey lost a season over that mindless battle. And, if somehow the light-spending Rays play the light-spending Milwaukee Brewers in the World Series, the salary cap argument for owners would lose some bite … Love the analogy Joey Votto provided on Blair and Barker regarding the difficult season of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: “Imagine you have to stop at a stop sign and you’re going 100 miles per hour. And every single time you approach that stop sign, you crept through it, you couldn’t brake at the right time. That’s basically what has happened to his barrel this year. He’s mis-timing the stop sign. He’s mis-timing the ball.” If you do that in the car, or the on field, same result: You crash.

This is beginning to look like Evan Bouchard’s breakout season with the Oilers. He has six goals in four games from the back end. Heading into Saturday’s action, no other defenceman has more than Cale Makar’s three goals to this early point. Bouchard has a ridiculous 11 points in four games. He’s doing what no one in Edmonton has done since Paul Coffey … And I wonder in retrospect: If Team Canada had Bouchard and Matthew Schaefer on its roster in Milan, would the end result for hockey gold have been different? … Kyle Connor might be the best-kept secret in hockey. All he does with the Winnipeg Jets is produce … The worst news possible for the New York Rangers — Igor Shesterkin out for the year. There are only a handful of change-the-game goaltenders left in the NHL. Shesterkin is one of those. He cannot be properly replaced unless it’s by a certain holdout in Winnipeg, which makes no financial sense … A chartered accountant wrote me with this story: He was writing his final exam in September of 1972. When he left the room, Team Canada trailed 5-2 to the Soviet Union. By the time he got to his car and turned on the radio, it was 5-3. By the time he got home it was 5-4 and then 5-5. And then it happened, Paul Henderson scored. “Whether he’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame,” the accountant wrote me, “he’ll always be in mine.”

There are so many Mike Ditka stories that you could fill an encyclopedia re-telling them. The coach was larger than life, born to play football, born to coach it, born to be a football character for the ages. Da Coach of Da Bears. My favourite story was about his charitable ways: He carried only $100 bills on the road when he worked as a broadcaster. If he bought a drink, he’d pay with a $100 bill and say keep the change. Same with homeless people in whatever city he was in. Same with cab drivers. Same with doormen in the hotel. He budgeted every football season for how much he was being paid and how much he wanted to give back … People forget how great a player Ditka was as a tight end in Chicago: In his rookie season, at a time when passing was not in vogue the way it is today, he scored 12 touchdowns and had 1,076 yards receiving. It took Travis Kelce five years in the pass-happy NFL to reach the thousand mark in a season … The death of Ditka reminded me of my late friend, Jim Hunt. When Hunt went on the road for the Toronto Sun, he had a habit. For his expense accounts, he would fill out his own taxi slips and sign them with famous people’s names from the city he had travelled to. Every time he went to Chicago, one of his cab drivers was named Ditka … So who is the most outstanding player in the CFL this year? Which Alouette is it — quarterback Davis Alexander or the superb Canadian receiver Tyson Philpot? Philpot has ridiculous numbers, 119 catches with three games to go. No one will ever surpass Mookie Mitchell’s 160 catches in a season, but Philpot is having a season to remember … Argos’ first-year head coach Mike Miller should win the CFL’s coach of the year … Amazing how many great athletes come from the Edmonton area: Carolina running back Chuba Hubbard; soccer great Alphonso Davies; figure skater Kurt Browning; hockey stars Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr, Jarome Iginla and Johnny Bucyk, to name just a few … Happy birthday to Chris Pronger (52), Steve Young (65), Brett Favre (57), Troy Tulowitzki (42), Peter Mahovlich (80), Alexis Lafreniere (25), T.J. Watt (32), Shane Doan (50), Rhea Ripley (30), Gene Tenace (80) and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (33) … And hey, whatever became of William (The Refrigerator) Perry?

Simmons is Canada’s longest-serving sports columnist

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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