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Greg Wyshynski, Senior NHL writer
Wayne Gretzky scored 894 goals in 1,487 career NHL games. Alex Ovechkin is poised to shatter that record, having scored 872 times in 1,451 games through Wednesday night.
That’s a combined 2,938 career games played between the two players, sharing the ice with hundreds of teammates, spanning from Hall of Famers to one-night wonders. Yet there’s only one player in NHL history that was a teammate to both Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin.
His name is Mike Knuble, a winger who played 16 hardscrabble seasons in the NHL. And he was as surprised as you are to learn he’s the unexpected link between two hockey legends whose careers didn’t overlap.
“I get to be one of the funny trivia answers! Got to put that in Trivial Pursuit or a bar game or something,” he told ESPN recently, with a laugh.
As Ovechkin neared the Gretzky record, Knuble started wondering whether he was the only player to have skated with both the Washington Capitals star and The Great One as a teammate.
“I kind of was spitballing with somebody: ‘Well, who’s played in Washington and with the New York Rangers that’s also about my age?’ I’m like, ‘There’s nobody really. So maybe it’s just me,'” he said.
Knuble was a 26-year-old forward with the New York Rangers in 1998-99, the final season of Gretzky’s career. He played three seasons with Ovechkin in Washington (2009-10 through 2011-12) before finishing his career at age 40 with the Philadelphia Flyers.
“The fact that Ovi is nipping at Gretzky’s heels is just crazy,” Knuble said.
Gretzky was in his elder statesman era with the Rangers, and Knuble got to witness the mania when it was announced he was retiring after 20 seasons. But Knuble was the elder statesmen when he arrived in Washington to find a 24-year-rock star in Ovechkin, who had just won his first Hart Trophy and scoring title, as the face of the Capitals’ “Young Guns” resurgence.
“I just felt so fortunate to play with them. They’re both such superstars,” he said.
In the process, Knuble became someone uniquely qualified to compare, contrast and analyze the two greatest goal scorers in NHL history as teammates.
KNUBLE WAS DRAFTED 76th overall by the Detroit Red Wings in 1991. After four seasons at the University of Michigan, and some time in the AHL, he joined the Red Wings as a rookie in 1996-97.
Knuble was no goal-scoring slouch, tallying 278 times in 1,068 NHL games, but he had a different approach to that art than Gretzky or Ovechkin did: He was famous for parking himself inches from the goaltender’s crease and scoring short-distance goals while being mauled by opposing defensemen.
“[Hockey Hall of Famer] Dino Ciccarelli was the pioneer of that. He was undersized, under-gunned and got the s— beat out of him all the time,” Knuble said. “He scored 600 goals back when they could be really mean to you. I went [to the crease] when they weren’t as mean.”
Knuble chuckles when he sees goal-scoring heat maps in coaches’ offices that show an intense crimson around the crease.
“I’ll be talking to young players and I draw the East Coast of the United States. I draw Florida and then I draw Cuba and then a draw a big shark further away,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘If all the fish are right here between Florida and Cuba, why would you be swimming all the way over here if you’re a shark and you’re hungry? All the fish are right here! Go to where the fish are!'”
For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the fish were wherever Wayne Gretzky had the puck on his stick.
Knuble had never met Gretzky before, but he was a fan — not just as a kid growing up in Toronto, but as an adult playing in the NHL.
Before the 1998 Olympics, he cornered Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman in the weight room to sheepishly ask if he might bring home a signed Gretzky stick from Nagano, Japan. Knuble was stunned when Yzerman returned with a personalized autographed stick, the butt end burned with an Olympic logo that incorporated Gretzky’s initials into it.
A few months later, the Red Wings traded Knuble to the Rangers for a second-round draft pick. Which meant the guy asking for Wayne Gretzky’s autograph was now Wayne Gretzky’s teammate.
“You see his jersey and you see your jersey, and it’s the same color as his. And you’re just like, ‘Holy s— here we go,'” Knuble said. “I remember saying my hellos and then just sitting in my stall, not talking to him for a couple of weeks. I was quiet on the bus with him, too. I’d just sit and listen to his recollections about his time in Edmonton, dropping names and telling stories.”
Time with Gretzky away from the rink was fleeting. There were cities on the road where Gretzky could grab dinner with his teammates and not get mobbed — mostly “non-traditional” hockey markets, according to Knuble — but everywhere else, fans would swarm the most famous hockey player in the world.
“He’d give the time, but it wasn’t going to be too much time. He knew how to handle that balance,” he said.
Gretzky wasn’t a boisterous presence in the Rangers’ dressing room. That’s partially because the Rangers had other leaders to whom he would defer, such as captain Brian Leetch. “He wasn’t trying to outshine anyone. But everyone knew that when he wanted to say something, the floor was his,” Knuble said.
Knuble wasn’t a primary linemate for Gretzky during his time with the Rangers. He’d watch from the bench as The Great One operated from his office behind the opponent’s net, and wait for his chance to join the Gretzky scoring ledger.
“You’re just hoping that he scored and you got a point with him. You just want to hear your name linked with him,” said Knuble, who scored two goals assisted by Gretzky in 1998-99.
Those goals by Knuble were some of the final points collected by Gretzky in his legendary career. That season would be his last.
The Rangers weren’t going to make the playoffs that season. As the games dwindled on the schedule, the speculation about Gretzky’s future grew louder. Knuble remembers the Rangers players purposefully avoiding the topic inside the room, but then it happened: It was officially announced very late in the season that Gretzky would be retiring.
The Rangers’ next game after that announcement was at the Ottawa Senators on April 15, 1999.
“We were in Ottawa and the Canadian National Guard surrounded our hotel because it was his last game in Canada,” Knuble recalled. “I’ll never forget coming out of the hotel for the game and seeing guys with rifles.”
The hotel restricted access to guests only, having people show some form of ID to get into the lobby, which was still jam-packed with people trying to find Gretzky. The Rangers’ bus would park in front of the hotel, drawing all of the attention from fans as Gretzky found another exit.
“Wayne was always really good about going out the back door, sending diversion out in the front, and then he’d slip out,” Knuble said. “And I’m sure Alex got good at playing those games, too.”
KNUBLE CURRENTLY COACHES teenage hockey players in Michigan. They know about his NHL career. They’ll ask whether he has Alex Ovechkin in his phone contacts list.
“I’ll show it to them and tell them that he’s probably changed his number like eight times. But go ahead and call him. Go knock yourselves out,” he said, laughing. “But I’m super proud to have it. The kids appreciate that. It’s a good cocktail party conversation, too.”
Knuble was in his third NHL season when he became Gretzky’s teammate. He was entering his 13th season when he signed with the Capitals as a free agent in 2009, having previously battled against Ovechkin & Co. as a member of the Flyers.
As much as he knew about Gretzky before becoming his teammate, Knuble knew little about Ovechkin before joining him.
“There was a little bit of mystery,” he said.
Ovechkin had scored 219 goals in his first four NHL seasons and would add another 50 goals to that total in Knuble’s first season in Washington. He skated fast, blasted more shots than anyone in the league and hit like a truck. He was a force of nature. Knuble said one of his biggest challenges as a teammate was not to be in awe of Ovechkin’s abilities.
“As a player you had to be very careful that you didn’t defer to him too much. You knew what he could do, but it wasn’t like ‘force it, force it, force it’ to him all the time,” he said. “I think you had to get him the puck when you could and do some of the legwork. But when you had a chance — and you were in a high-end, high percentage scoring area — you had to shoot the puck. You couldn’t defer all the time.”
Knuble assisted on 14 goals by Ovechkin during his 220 games with the Capitals.
“I think the biggest thing is you didn’t want to slow him down. He’s trending to be a hundred-point guy, and now you’re playing with him, you’re linked to him, you don’t want his percentage go down,” Knuble explained. “If he’s down to an 80-point pace, well, who are they going to point the finger at? It’s not because of him, it’s because of me. So you didn’t want to be that guy.”
Off the ice, the two didn’t spend much time together. Knuble was older and had children. Ovechkin hung with younger players, a crew who all grew up together on the Capitals. Knuble understood the dynamics.
“When I was in Detroit, it wasn’t like I was hanging out with Yzerman. You’re with your peers,” he said. “Maybe there’s the odd time you end up at the same restaurant or you have a team event where you hang out, but your boys are your boys.”
As he watched Ovechkin continue to pile on goals, playing with a variety of teammates — Knuble, for the record, thinks Ovechkin might already have the record if Nicklas Backstrom could have remained healthy — he figured Ovechkin had a shot at catching Gretzky if his body cooperated.
“If he stayed healthy, with the way he finishes … could he be second or third all-time? And then he stayed really healthy and kept playing well,” Knuble said. “He’s always been blessed with great health on the ice, where nothing super fluky happened to him. The most impressive thing about him is his longevity.”
Ovechkin’s maturity was a factor in that longevity, according to Knuble.
“I think Alex has just stood the test of time a little bit. You’re a young guy, you kind of live hard on and off the ice, and then when you’re older you realize, ‘I can’t be doing this as much,'” he said.
Finally hoisting something other than an individual trophy also helped.
“I think winning a Stanley Cup was really big for him, too. I think that was a big feather in his cap. You don’t want to be a golfer that’s never won a major, you know?” Knuble said. “I think him winning the team thing was just basically the last box he needed to check.”
Ovechkin is now older (39) than Gretzky was (38) when Knuble played with him in New York. The Capitals captain has matured, but Knuble still sees that spark of youth in his game as he chases Gretzky’s record.
“It’s fun to see him just happy, see him in his joy,” he said. “I think when he was younger, the joy that carried him was the most noticeable thing. Eventually you get older and the joy settles down a little bit, but still he plays with so much of it.”
KNUBLE ADMITS THAT Ovechkin and Gretzky are “different in the way they do their things,” but share one key similarity: the way the understood their responsibilities in selling the sport they love.
“Wayne was very good at being an ambassador of the game. He knew that it’s super inconvenient for him, but he’s going to do it with a smile on his face. He’s not going to bitch about it. It’s his job to move the game forward,” he said. “Alex is pretty good about that stuff too. And it was hard for him. He’s not a North American, but certainly Alex has been a great ambassador of the game here.”
Part of being an ambassador of the game is inspiring subsequent generations to pick up a stick or watch a game. Knuble said both players accomplished that during their careers.
“They’ve both been so good to the game, to the NHL and great role models for kids,” he said. “Wayne revamped the game in his way. And then Ovi revamped it again with his way — a little more flash, a little more flare. We all copied Wayne and then kids today copied Ovi.”
There have been other all-time players who starred in their respective eras, from Mario Lemieux to Sidney Crosby to Connor McDavid. But Knuble believes there’s something different about the way Gretzky and Ovechkin have broken through as sports celebrities.
“People coast to coast in the United States know who [Ovechkin] is, and what more can you ask for, especially as a hockey player?” he said. “You go to California and you can be on the beach there playing volleyball and be like, ‘Who’s Alex Ovechkin?’ And they’ll be like, ‘Oh, that Russian dude in D.C., right? Hockey player?’ If you can get that kind of thing, then that’s a successful athlete.”
As Knuble watches the Ovechkin record chase unfold, his thoughts are with Gretzky. He believes The Great One has shown exemplary class in watching an all-time mark potentially fall. Like Gordie Howe did when Gretzky chased his records, Gretzky has blessed Ovechkin’s own record pursuit.
“Wayne’s such an ambassador, saying, ‘Hey, I can’t wait to see this come to fruition. I can’t wait to see him chase it down. I’m going to be there and be thrilled for him when the time comes.’ And that’s not a lie. That’s not bulls—. And it’s just great,” Knuble said. “The league is thrilled that another generational player has come through. It’s just crazy that this even remotely had a chance to happen.”
Almost as crazy as an NHL veteran who kicked around with five different franchises being the only player to have called the top two goal scorers in league history as his teammates.
“I was on the ice with both. Got sticks signed by both. Got to say that I spent with each of them,” he said. “Again, I just feel so fortunate.”