Brooks Laich Predicts Alex Ovechkin’s NHL Return and Russia Move
Brooks Laich knows Alex Ovechkin better than anyone.
The 42-year-old spent 11 seasons as Ovechkin’s teammate from 2005 to 2016, witnessing the Russian phenom grow from a star rookie into a veteran superstar. Laich last played in the NHL during the 2017-18 season and has since retired, but the 40-year-old Ovechkin is still going strong, having recently completed his 21st season in the NHL.
Ovechkin has yet to officially decide whether he will return for another season, which would likely be with the Capitals. Laich believes the NHL’s all-time leading regular-season goal scorer will return in part to break Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career goals record for the regular season and postseason combined.
“I get asked this a lot. I think he comes back,” Laich said in a one-on-one interview on behalf of his new travel booking platform, World Playground. “I think Alex wants to have his name as the No. 1 goal scorer across all records in the NHL. Currently, he’s No. 1 in the regular season, but if you add the regular season and playoffs, he’s No. 2, and he’s not far from being No. 1.
“I think he comes back to solidify himself across the record books,” Laich continued. “In my opinion, he is the greatest goal scorer the game has ever seen. I got to play a decade with him. I’m a friend, but also a fan of his, and I hope he comes back for one more year.”
Gretzky holds the record for combined regular-season and postseason goals with 1,016. Ovechkin is right behind him with 1,006, meaning he would need 11 more goals to break the record. For perspective, Ovechkin scored 32 goals this season and has dipped below 30 goals in a season only once, when he played just 45 games during the 2020-21 campaign.
Ovechkin Could Finish His Career in Russia
Laich ultimately believes Ovechkin will return to his native Russia to play professionally after spending one more year with the Capitals and breaking the all-time goals record.
“I do believe after that he will want to play in Russia,” said Laich. “I know he has always wanted to. I know he wants to raise his family in Russia. I do see that he’ll want to maybe continue in Russia, and probably now, absent of having that record, he maybe would have played in Russia. So we’ll see. My guess is that he comes back for one more year.
“I also want him to have his swan song. He’s the greatest goal scorer that the game has ever seen, and he’s a celebrated and beloved player,” Laich continued. “He’s a legend who is still playing, and I would love for him to have the toast in each city that he goes to because he has meant so much to the league for the last two decades.”
Ovechkin is currently weighing his future and has expressed a desire for Washington to show more of an effort to compete. The Capitals missed the playoffs this season, finishing ninth in the Eastern Conference. It was just the third time since the 2007-08 season that the Capitals had missed the postseason.
The NHL’s all-time regular-season goals leader has not shown signs of slowing down. Laich ultimately believes Ovechkin’s decision will come down to his mental approach and how long he wants to continue playing, especially now that he has young children.
“He’s a rock star in North America. In Russia, he’s a king,” Laich said. “I think he will. I think for sure he plays one year. Physically, I think he could play more. It’s just, does he want to? He’s got a couple of young kids. Does he continue to want to play? He’s certainly made enough money to just retire and do whatever he wants. But I think he’ll want to at least play one year over there.
“Most guys from Russia who come over, Pavel Datsyuk was the same, go back, and they like to play a year or two in their home country. I understand that. I would probably want to do the same in Canada if the NHL weren’t in Canada. So I think he’ll play over there.”
‘The Greatest Goal Scorer the Game Has Ever Seen’
Ovechkin is widely regarded as one of the greatest NHL players ever, having won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league’s MVP three times and the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy a record nine times.
However, when he is compared with other all-time greats, especially a player from his generation with a similar résumé such as Sidney Crosby, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where Ovechkin ranks.
One thing is not in question: Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer ever, according to Laich.
“Initially, three things come to mind,” Laich said. “First, greatest goal scorer the game has ever seen. In my mind, it’s undisputed. Nobody scored goals the way he scored. Second, the greatest combination of skill and physicality that the game has ever seen. First all-time in NHL goals. Third all-time in hits. Skill players are rarely ever half as physical as Alex is, let alone for 20 years. So greatest goal scorer ever, greatest combination of skill and physicality ever.
“And in the third part, he could be in the conversation as the most exciting player to have ever played the game,” Laich continued. “I’m not certain that I would rank him as No. 1 in that, although he is absolutely in the conversation. The other two, I would absolutely rank him as No. 1. The third one, he could be the most exciting player to have ever played the game.”
Laich continued to emphasize how impressive Ovechkin’s goals record is, considering he played in an era with less scoring than when Gretzky and Mario Lemieux played. For perspective, during the 1980s, when Gretzky was in his prime, the average number of goals scored per team per game never dipped below 3.51 in any season. In 15 of Ovechkin’s 21 seasons, it was below three goals per team per game.
When asked whether he believes anybody will break Ovechkin’s all-time goals record, Laich did not rule it out. However, he said it would be extremely difficult, noting that Ovechkin has nine 50-goal seasons in his career.
“He scored goals in an era where goal scoring was so hard,” Laich said. “To score 50 goals when people were putting up 200 points is one thing. To score 50 goals when the league leader had 87 points, the numbers are astronomical.
“The consistency, you asked me, is anybody going to beat that record? We didn’t think he was going to beat it, as great of a goal scorer as he was, and we knew he was the best. We didn’t think he was going to beat it because that number was so far away, and he kept going.
“That’s the equivalent of 18 50-goal seasons to get to that record. Eighteen gets you to 900 goals. One 50-goal season is the best season for the top 0.1% of players in a career. That’s the prime season of their career. He did it essentially 18 times.
“So, do I think somebody’s going to beat it? The way the game is trending, the game has become a lot more offensive, and the game is cyclical. It goes through these offensive, defensive and physical cycles. So I’ll never say that somebody won’t beat it, but it’s going to seem so far out of reach for everybody because of the longevity of it.”
Laich said that among the players he has seen, including Gretzky, whom he watched, and Lemieux, whom he faced, Ovechkin is firmly in his top five.
“I got to play against Mario one time. He put up five points in this exhibition game,” Laich said. “After the game, I called my dad. I’m like, ‘Dad, if I make this team and Mario still plays,’ it was the year he retired, ‘if he still plays, I’m flying you to see Mario.’
“I never got to play against Wayne, but I watched him. Yeah, he’s got to be, in my lifetime, and if I’m starting from the generation of Wayne and Mario and coming to the current generation, he’s in my top five.”
How Ovechkin Changed Hockey’s Culture
The former Capitals veteran also praised Ovechkin for showing his personality in a league that has not traditionally featured many outspoken stars.
“The longevity, the goal-scoring prowess, the physicality, what he did for the sport, you also have to look at somebody’s impact on a sport,” Laich said. “The way he impacted the sport, hockey prior to Ovechkin was very much a traditional, blue-collar, no-personality sport, and he blew that wide open.
“Here came a guy who lost a tooth, had messy hair, wore wild visors and had yellow laces in his skates. He was flamboyant and energetic and brought a personality to the game in which everybody else was pretty much just a soldier.
“Other sports outcompeted hockey because they were more marketable and had more personalities. The NBA is the best example of this. You have terrific personalities in the NBA, and Alex was kind of the first NHL player who really had a dominant personality that brought a lot of attention and eyeballs to the league. Not only what he did on the ice, but when you partner that with what he did off the ice, he’s definitely in my top five.”
When asked about the comparison that comes up more than any other, Ovechkin versus Crosby, Laich did not pick one over the other. Instead, he pointed out that Ovechkin is a great individual player, while Crosby elevated the players around him. Laich also noted the differences between their positions, with Ovechkin playing left wing and Crosby playing center.
“I view them as very different players,” Laich said. “Alex has amazing individual abilities to score goals. You just watch his highlight reel, and it is just goal after goal of amazing individual plays and skills. He could go through you, around you, whatever way he could beat you.
“Crosby, I played against Crosby for a decade-plus as well. He had a different set of skills that he is world-class at. He had amazing, exceptional, world-class individual skills, but he also had a skill to make every single other player on the ice better. Every defenseman, every winger, every player Sidney played with was instantly elevated, and that was a skill, a superpower, that he possessed.
“I see them as different. Alex was very individually skilled, and Sidney was exceptionally individually skilled as well, but he could also elevate players around him. Nicklas Backstrom did that on our team. Nicklas Backstrom was our center for a decade, and Nicklas had that same skill where everybody who was on the ice with him was better, similar to Crosby.
“Peyton Manning and Tom Brady played the same position. Ovechkin was a winger, Sidney was a center, so there’s a difference in their positions, but they’re also different. Alex had the amazing individual skills, and Crosby elevated everybody around him.”