Coming into Sunday, Alex Ovechkin sat 3 goals away from 50 on the season, as well as tying Peter Bondra for the Washington Capitals all time record for goals, 472. With 13 career hat tricks under his belt, one wouldn’t be a fool to believe Alex would be able to achieve those marks Sunday afternoon at MSG, but for some reason, this season has been different for The Great Eight.

Ovechkin only managed to score 2 goals yesterday afternoon, marking the 14th multi-goal game of his season. What’s weird about all 14 games? Well they’ve all been 2 goal games. If this were able to hold up and Ovi is unable to record a hat trick in the final 6 games of the season, it would be the most 2 goal games in a season without recording a hat trick since Jaromir Jagr recorded 15 2 goal games in 1995-1996.

So far this season, I believe Ovi has taken approximately 26 shots on net while already having scored 2 goals in the game. 0-26. Reddit user slowdownnn1 explains in a comment: “this is his 14th two goal game. He has had at least 26 shots while already having scored two, and with a S% of around 13 that is like a 2% chance of not having scored on at least one of those for the hatty”. Remarkable numbers for the best scorer of our generation.Yesterday versus the Rangers was perhaps the closest Ovi has come to a hat trick this season. If it weren’t for Dan Boyle’s sprawling defense in the crease, Ovechkin likely would have scored another goal late in the first period.

Alex has not been given many chances for the easy hat trick with the opposition’s net being empty. In 2009-10, Ovi led the league in ENG. This year? Just 2. This can be attributed to Barry Trotz having him on the ice for just 10.3% of the time with the opposition’s net empty (via @war_on_ice). Instead, Trotz has utilized more defensive forwards like Brooks Laich and Troy Brouwer in these situations.

The purpose of this article was not to downgrade or tarnish Ovi’s scoring, rather to focus on how unexpected and absurd this has been. Please take the time to appreciate Alex for what he is, the best goal scorer of our generation, and possibly the best of all time.