Ovechkin won't be at bottom of 700-goal club for long, members say

With five more, he'll become the eighth member of the 700-goal club, joining Gretzky, Gordie Howe (801), Jaromir Jagr (766), Brett Hull (741), Marcel Dionne (731), Phil Esposito (717) and Mike Gartner (708)."Anyone who joins that club, obviously, has done something special," Hull said.Before being held without a point in a 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, Ovechkin scored 11 times during a five-game goal streak to move past Hockey Hall of Famers Teemu Selanne (684 goals), Mario Lemieux (690), Steve Yzerman (692) and Mark Messier (694) up to eighth in NHL history. The 34-year-old native of Moscow, Russia, appreciates that he's on the verge of entering rarified air."Obviously, lots of legends up there," Ovechkin said.Video: WSH@OTT: Ovechkin scores twice to pass MessierNHL.com talked with each of the six living 700-goal scorers, all members of the Hockey Hall of Fame except Jagr, who continues to play professionally in the Czech Republic at 47 years old, as well as Mark Howe, a Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman and son of Gordie, who died in 2016.The consensus is that 700 will be just a pitstop for Ovechkin."Well, he's going to get to 800, there's no doubt in my mind, as long as he's not hurt or anything like that," Dionne said. Hull's father, Bobby Hull, is the only other player to lead the League in goals as many as seven times."What is the most impressive for me is that Ovechkin has won eight Maurice Richard trophies, which is just surreal," said Jagr, who scored his 700th goal while playing for the New Jersey Devils on March 1, 2014, the most recent to join the club. "I cannot imagine someone else could ever do that in the future."Video: WPG@WSH: Ovi buries rebound for 600th NHL goalOvechkin also could become the second-oldest player with a 50-goal season in the NHL, behind Johnny Bucyk -- who scored 51 for the Boston Bruins in 1970-71 when he was 35 -- and join Esposito as the only players with three 50-goal seasons at age 30 or older."If you put Ovechkin in my era, I don't know what his numbers might be. Yet, he's been remarkably durable.Ovechkin has missed 31 games in his career, 17 because of injury, and missed more than four in a season once, when he scored 50 goals in 72 games in 2009-10.Ovechkin is on his way to leading the NHL in shots on goal for the 12th time; his 244 in 52 games are eight more than Vegas Golden Knights forward Max Pacioretty has in 54. He's never had fewer than 303 shots on goal in a full season and has topped 400 three times, including 528 in 2008-09, when he scored 56 goals."He's a great shooter," said Gartner, who played 19 NHL seasons before retiring in 1998. They work well together, they play unselfishly, and Backstrom knows that he's the playmaker and Ovi's the goal-scorer."Video: WSH@NYI: Ovi scores to tie Lemieux on all-time listDionne, who played 18 NHL seasons before retiring in 1989, said it also helps to play with a skilled, puck-moving defenseman. He's had some period of time when I thought he would be slowly going down, and all of a sudden there was some turn, and he started to get back up."Video: WSH@VGK, Gm5: Capitals celebrate first Stanley Cup***Trailing Gretzky by 199 goals, Ovechkin has work to do, but what once seemed impossible no longer does."When I scored 76 (in 1970-71), they said, 'Nobody is going to score more than that,'" Esposito said.