Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin nets hat-trick against Oilers as quest for NHL’s goal-scoring record continues

At 39 years of age, Washington Capitals’ captain Alex Ovechkin continues to be one of the league’s best goal scorers, and on Sunday afternoon, he inched closer to breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record.

Ovechkin scored a hat trick on Sunday against the Edmonton Oilers, leading Washington to a 7-3 win. The Capitals’ forward has 29 goals on the season and 882 in his career, just 12 away from tying Gretzky’s career mark of 894.

Ovechkin scored his first of the day midway through the second period off a drop pass from Dylan Strome, burying a wrister past Calvin Pickard to make it 3-1 Capitals.

Ten minutes later on the power play, from the spot near the faceoff dot where he’s scored hundreds of times, Ovechkin one-timed another past Pickard to make it 4-1 Washington.

With just minutes left in the game and the score was 6-3 Capitals, the Oilers had an empty net with three minutes to go, when Ovechkin found a loose puck and fired it down the ice and into the Edmonton cage to seal the victory and give himself a hat trick, the 32nd of his career.

The Capitals have 25 regular-season games remaining on the schedule, meaning Ovechkin needs to score 13 more goals if he wants to break Gretzky’s record. With 29 goals in 41 games, Ovechkin has a goals-per-game rate of 0.70, putting him on pace to finish the season with 46 goals.

Follow Daily Faceoff’s Alex Ovechkin goal tracker