How Alex Ovechkin became hockey’s greatest goal-scorer

DAVID PERRON, Ottawa Senators forward: Sometimes from the bench and where his spot is on the power play, you see kind of the perfect line for his one-timer and how he’s able to shoot around bodies, shoot around everything. Guys are so good now at blocking shots and the goalies are extremely good. Getting it around that first layer, he does a really good job of that.

TKACHUK: I think now, and I feel like for his whole career, he’s always been marked and he always has a guy in his back pocket basically, but he just finds a way to get it done. Us teams or coaches, players, aren’t dumb enough to leave him open, but even just a little couple of feet that he is open and you think you’re covering him, he still finds a way to score.

PERRON: It’s tough to say how he does it when everyone knows he’ll be there.

CLARK: It’s one thing to do it your rookie year. It’s one thing to do it for a couple of years. But to do it for 20 years with everybody on the ice knowing he’s there and where he’s going to take a one-timer from, and it still goes in? That’s just amazing.

Many players have tried Ovechkin’s stick, hoping they can get the same kind of zip out of it. It turns out they cannot.

MARTIN FEHERVARY, teammate: His curve is literally like a golf club, like a 60 degree or whatever. I don’t know how he can shoot with that, and it’s an absolute bomb.

CLARK: I remember from the beginning he was using CCMs and he had that big hook curve on it, and a very whippy stick. I had a whippy stick with a heel curve, but the combination he had, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. He had such a banana curve. Big, and right in the middle.

CARLSON: I wouldn’t even know how to play with that thing. It’s small — very small for a guy that big. When he started in the league, you couldn’t use that curve, it was illegal. So, once they stopped doing that, it’s been the curve he’s used for a long time.