Ovechkin chase of Gretzky stirs memories for his 1st NHL coach with Capitals

Glen Hanlon's old line about Wayne Gretzky scoring his first NHL goal against him was, "I created a monster."

As Alex Ovechkin's first coach with the Washington Capitals, Hanlon also played a role in the NHL origin story of the goal-scoring monster who is closing in on breaking Gretzky's League record. But the former goalie takes no credit -- even in jest -- for where Ovechkin is now, with 879 goals and needing 16 more to surpass Gretzky's total of 894. Ovechkin will try to chip away at that number against the Utah Hockey Club at Capital One Arena on Sunday (12:30 p.m. ET; Utah16, MNMT, SN) before the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

It was evident to Hanlon even before a 20-year-old Ovechkin opened the 2005-06 season by scoring twice in his NHL debut against the Columbus Blue Jackets that he had arrived from Russia having, "the total package," in terms of his skills and being physically prepared (he was listed at 6-foot-2, 216 pounds as a rookie) to play in the NHL.

"It's really hard to paint the picture, but for whatever reason it wasn't like you were dealing with a junior hockey player," Hanlon said. "There was something about him that he was ready for the moment."

Glen Hanlon knew Alex Ovechkin would be great when he coached him in Washington, he just couldn't predict he would challenge Wayne Gretzky for the NHL goals record.

That doesn't mean Hanlon would have predicted then that Ovechkin, now 39, 6-foot-3 and 238 pounds, would be chasing down Gretzky nearly 20 years later. With 26 goals in 38 games this season, Ovechkin is on pace to score his 895th goal at home against the Carolina Hurricanes on April 10.

"That was never part of the thought process," Hanlon said. "Like, who's going to break Gretzky's record? Then, as it went further along in his career, I think people were still questioning even as little as three or four years ago is he going to make it. I'm happy for him that it's going to work out.

"I'm happy for him and I'm happy for hockey. Certainly, anytime the game can get a boost like this, it's great."

Hanlon, now coach of HC Bolzano (Italy) of the International Central European Hockey League, has been around a few of them during his career, which includes playing 14 seasons in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks (1978-82), St. Louis Blues (1982-83), New York Rangers (1983-86) and Detroit Red Wings (1986-91). Hanlon also was at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles as the Canucks goalie coach when Gretzky scored his 802nd goal to break the previous NHL record of 801 held by Gordie Howe on March 23, 1994.

"Every time I turned around, there was something going on for 99," Hanlon said.

* * * *

The semantics might be irrelevant to some, but Hanlon would rather you didn't say that he "gave up" Gretzky's first NHL goal.

"Now, I didn't give it up," he said. "I keep telling people that. He scored on me. I tried as hard as I could."

Before becoming Alex Ovechkin's first NHL coach in Washington, Glen Hanlon played goalie for 476 games, including allowing Wayne Gretzky's first NHL goal.

By Hanlon's preferred phrasing, he was the first of 156 different goalies to try and fail at least once against Gretzky. "The Great One" already was regarded as the game's next star when he entered the NHL as an 18-year-old with the Edmonton Oilers in 1979 following the League's merger with the World Hockey Association. Gretzky had 110 points (46 goals, 64 assists) in 80 WHA games with Indianapolis and Edmonton in 1978-79.

Though Gretzky didn't score a goal in his first two NHL games, against the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings, settling for an assist in each, Hanlon keenly was aware he had to look out for No. 99 when the Canucks visited Northlands Coliseum to take on the Oilers on Oct. 14, 1979.

"Oh, for sure," Hanlon said. "It would be the same with all these (young) players coming in now or with Alex."

A third-round pick (No. 40) by Vancouver in the 1977 NHL Draft, Hanlon had played in 37 NHL games before his first against Gretzky. The Canucks led by a goal until Gretzky broke through with 1:09 remaining in the third period to give the Oilers a 4-4 tie.

Gretzky was behind the net when he took a pass from Brett Callighen before skating out to Hanlon's right. Hanlon dropped to his left side and attempted to stack his pads to make the save but Gretzky lifted a backhand that found an opening between them.

"It was typical: Gretzky hanging onto the puck, coming out from behind the net and a goalie doing a two-pad stack," Hanlon said. "That was our only defense to anything back in those days. That seemed to be the magical elixir for everything with two-pad stack. And he tucks it up over the top of you and you're a part of history."

The details of that goal had faded from Hanlon's memory until Gretzky was closing in on Howe for the NHL goal record and inquisitive media members started calling to ask about Gretzky's first. Hanlon initially ignored the phone messages.

"I'm going, ‘I don't want anything to do with that,'" Hanlon remembered. "Then, there was more. There was a bunch of them. … I was kind of the low-hanging fruit to be the goalie he scored on. So after about the fifth [message], I end up going, ‘What's going on?' Because it was well in advance of ‘Gretz' breaking the all-time record.

"So, finally, I had to go back and look it up."

Hanlon found it fitting that the goal originated with Gretzky behind the net, the area that would become known as his office because he made countless plays from that spot for 20 NHL seasons.

"By setting up behind the net, he had a lot of different options between (Paul) Coffey, (Jari) Kurri or (Glenn) Anderson or (Mark) Messier, whoever it was," Hanlon said. "So it wasn't like you were just focusing on one player on the ice, and I think it was really intelligent to set up shop from behind there. I don't know why more people don't do it.

"You ask any goalie and the hardest thing to do is from a play behind the net to try to find the people in front, see where they are and do those types of things."

Gretzky scored 51 goals that season -- the first of his nine 50-goal seasons, an NHL record he shares with Ovechkin and Mike Bossy. He retired in 1999 as not only the NHL all-time leader in goals, but also assists (1,963) and points (2,857).

Hanlon never expected to be a footnote in Gretzky's legend.

"Back then, you're not thinking, ‘Boy, that's great. I gave up the goal to maybe the greatest player in history," Hanlon said. "He was still at that time 18 years old or whatever he was and that's his first goal. So you don't know that he's going to go on to a career to be the greatest of all time."

* * * *

Pascal Leclaire knows how Hanlon feels. The first of the NHL-record 180 different goalies Ovechkin has scored against, Leclaire wasn't thinking on Oct. 5, 2005 that he was facing a player who potentially would break Gretzky's goal record.

Pascal Leclaire was surprised to get the nod to start the 2005-06 season opener for the Blue Jackets.

"I never thought I was going to end up in history talks, but it does give me a good story now and then," said Leclaire, now a studio analyst for TVA Sports. "A lot of people don't actually believe it."

Similar to Hanlon, Leclaire has a lighthearted take on his contribution to the start of Ovechkin's record chase.

"I always joke that I gave him confidence right off the bat," Leclaire said.

The No. 8 pick by Columbus in the 2001 NHL Draft, Leclaire was 22 with two previous NHL starts under his belt (losses on Feb. 20 and 23, 2004) when he started the 2005-06 season opener at MCI Center in Washington. Of course Leclaire knew about Ovechkin, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2004 NHL Draft, but he was more concerned about himself.

He was surprised to get the assignment ahead of incumbent Marc Denis, who started 63 games for Columbus in 2003-04 before the 2004-05 season was canceled because of the lockout.

"I almost felt a bit bad because I knew Marc Denis was our No. 1 and then, for some reason, (coach) Gerard Gallant made the decision to go with me," Leclaire said. "That was the first time I made the team (in training camp), so I was starting in the NHL. I always tell people we had scouting reports because there was the lockout the year before and we knew that he was going to be good.

"But at the same time, I was so focused on trying to do as well as I could. So ‘Ovi,' I knew I had to watch him as a main player, but my focus was on my game that night."

That night, Ovechkin became the first Capitals player to score two goals in his first NHL game, leading them to a 3-2 victory. The first tied the score at 1-1 at 7:21 of the second period.

Washington's Jeff Halpern circled behind the net with the puck and pushed it ahead to Dainius Zubrus before being rubbed into the boards by Columbus defenseman Francois Beauchemin. Zubrus curled out of the right corner and fed Ovechkin in the high slot for a one-timer that beat Leclaire on the stick side.

From seeing the replay a few times in recent years, Leclaire knows, "it was a one-timer right in the slot." Some other details are fuzzy, but the power of Ovechkin's shot remained ingrained in his memory.

"I remember I was surprised," Leclaire said. "I kind of didn't really see him coming, but the shot came fast. They told us that he had a good shot, but he was 19, 20 years old. I played against (Jonathan) Toews and (Patrick) Kane when they were 19 years old and (Sidney) Crosby too as well. They were excellent players, but they didn't have as hard a shot as Ovi.

"So that kind of was like, ‘Oh, this kid, we're going to have to look for it.'"

Halpern, who assisted on each of Ovechkin's goals in that game (plus Zubrus' game-winner), finds it fitting that the first came on a one-timer. Ovechkin's one-timer -- particularly on the power play from the left circle, which became known as his office -- would become his signature shot.

"You'd say it's almost like a coincidence, but obviously where he scores that first goal, and it's not exactly in his power-play spot, but it was a one-timer," Halpern said. "It was kind of foreshadowing what was about to happen over the next 15-20 years."

So was Ovechkin's power-play goal that tied the score at 2-2 at 11:51 of the second period after Columbus took a 2-1 lead on Dan Fritsche's second goal of the game at 10:22.

"I don't remember that one as well as the first one," Leclaire said.

Defenseman Mathieu Biron took the initial shot from the right point. Leclaire stopped that, but left a rebound in front that Halpern, who was battling for position with Blue Jackets defenseman Adam Foote, slid to Ovechkin in the bottom of the left circle for a shot into the empty left side of the net.

That was the first of Ovechkin's NHL record 318 power-play goals. According to charting by NHL.com, Ovechkin scored 201 of those power-play goals either from inside the left circle or above it, including 187 on one-timers.

"It was just a play at net-front and no one was off to that side," Halpern said. "Man, if you knew then; just throw pucks over there and they end up in the net."

* * * *

Hanlon doesn't remember either goal Ovechkin scored in his first NHL game.

"People from the outside remember the goals," he said. "I remember moments."

A moment from Ovechkin's debut that Hanlon, Leclaire and Halpern remember more vividly than his goals was his thunderous hit on Blue Jackets defenseman Radoslav Suchy. On his first NHL shift, Ovechkin raced in on the forecheck and drove Suchy into the end boards and glass to Leclaire's right so violently that the pane of glass was dislodged.

"You know when you talk about a baseball player and it's just a different sound coming off a bat, or a golfer, it's a different sound?" Halpern said. "The hit was a different sound. It was like someone getting hit with a right hook, and you're like, ‘Oh, my God.'"

Hanlon's initial reaction to the force of Ovechkin's hits was concern.

"That's our prized possession. We don't need him separating a shoulder," Hanlon said. "Then, you just realize that's going to be part of his game. That's going to give him space. There's not many players scoring that many goals that did that. He was powerful.

"It's not easy to step up on this guy coming down wing full blast."

Ovechkin tied Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers for third in the NHL with 52 goals that season. He also was third in the NHL with 106 points and won the Calder Trophy as the League's top rookie.

Alex Ovechkin poses with Wayne Gretzky, then the coach of the Phoenix Coyotes, at the 2006 NHL Draft in Vancouver.

Hanlon still marvels at the numbers Ovechkin put up that season, considering the Capitals were beginning a rebuild after trading away stars such as Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra and Sergei Gonchar prior to the 2004 NHL Trade Deadline. Washington went 29-41-12 and finished last in the Southeast Division with 70 points in 2005-06.

"To score 50 on rebuilding team, that's pretty [expletive] good," Hanlon said. "I likely wouldn't have taken that bet (at the start of the season), but once we started to get into the season, then I'm going to say, ‘Who knows? The sky's the limit here.'"

Hanlon tried to keep things simple with Ovechkin during his first NHL season. His basic message was to adhere to the Capitals' system in the defensive zone and let his natural talent take over in the offensive zone.

"I just said to him, ‘In our zone, our half of the ice, just play our way and watch your shift length. You're going to play a lot, but you will not really endear yourself to your teammates if you extend shifts and play long shifts,'" Hanlon said. "He was so competitive, and we just wanted him and all our players just to work as hard as they possibly could, accept whatever the result was, and come in the next day with an attitude that's going to help you get better.

"And if that meant a little bit of anger, then we can deal with that, but more or less just come with that zest to love the game."

Hanlon saw that love of the game in Ovechkin from the start. It was among the reasons Hanlon thought Ovechkin would be an elite player, but he couldn't have imagined that he might score more goals than Gretzky.

"Can you predict greatness?" Hanlon said. "Can you predict what (Connor) Bedard is going to be? You can't do that. You know maybe at that age he's the best player in the world by far. But how many players have you seen become the best players at 19 years old and then they don't end up being the greatest players of all time?

"What I will say is -- and I cannot put enough emphasis on the fact -- you knew something special was going to happen to him."

* * * *

Hanlon retired from playing in 1991 with a 167-202 record with 61 ties, a 3.61 goals-against average, .884 save percentage and 13 shutouts in 476 NHL regular-season games.

Is he glad he never had to face Ovechkin?

"I don't have to give him that much credit," Hanlon said, laughing. "You have to remember I would've been 45."

Hanlon, who turns 68 on Feb. 20, considers himself fortunate, though, to have been there at the start of Ovechkin's record chase.

"Not so much with Wayne," Hanlon said. "That's his accomplishment. That's my mistake."

Still, fate somehow connected him to both. In fact, Hanlon sometimes felt like he couldn't get away from Gretzky.

After Gretzky was traded to the Kings on Aug. 9, 1988, they opened the 1988-89 season against the Red Wings. Hanlon remains grateful to then Detroit coach Jacques Demers for starting Greg Stefan in that game at Great Western Forum.

Hanlon watched from the bench as Stefan's backup while Gretzky had four points (one goal, three assists) in the Kings' 8-2 win in his debut.

"He was just on fire that night too," Hanlon said. "You can only imagine all the hype that was going on from his first game with the Kings."

Wayne Gretzky shows off the puck after scoring his 802nd NHL goal, passing Gordie Howe.

There was even more hype the night Gretzky scored his 802nd goal against Canucks goalie Kirk McLean to pass Howe. As Vancouver's goalie coach and the first goalie Gretzky scored against, Hanlon could empathize with McLean.

"I used to say, ‘On that one incident, one of us went on to have an unbelievable career and one of us had an average career,'" Hanlon said. "The funny thing is we played Edmonton so many times and there were so many nights that are in my mind way more than him scoring the first goal. It was likely getting beat by high numbers by those Oilers teams or when I was with Detroit going in and playing both Calgary and Edmonton when they were the most offensive teams that you could be.

"Playing those two nights, you just wanted to come out with all your marbles intact."

In 14 games against Gretzky, Hanlon allowed 12 goals.

"You don't have to tell me," Hanlon said. "I've kind of put it to bed. Is there not somewhere on record how many times I stopped him? Maybe I don't even want to hear that. I'm still dealing with having the first goal scored on me."

Hanlon saved 41 of the 53 shots Gretzky had against him (.773 save percentage), according to NHL stats, including three of his four that first time they faced each other. Hanlon said he never has talked to Gretzky about his first goal or any of the other milestone moments when their paths crossed.

"I don't think I've ever been in the same area or had a conversation," Hanlon said.

It's similar for Leclaire with Ovechkin.

"Like I always say, he probably doesn't even remember about that goal," Leclaire said. "He scored so many. He probably has no clue who I am."

For the record, Ovechkin knows exactly what happened on his first goal and who was in net.

"Of course I remember him," said Ovechkin, who scored five goals in four career games against Leclaire. "Me, ‘Zubie' and ‘Halpie' was on the ice. ‘Zubie' find me and it was just a one-[timer]."

Leclaire, who retired in 2011 after seven NHL seasons -- five with the Blue Jackets (2004-09) and two with the Ottawa Senators (2009-11) -- is following the record chase at his job with TVA Sports. He continues to be amazed as Ovechkin closes in on Gretzky and is rooting for him.

"I think it's great for the game that we have something like that happening in front of our eyes," Leclaire said. "I'd like to have a jersey from him signed just as a souvenir because I was part of it. To me, it's a good story. My daughters weren't born when I retired from the NHL, so now they're starting to get it. My oldest one starts asking questions about hockey.

"She doesn't understand yet that the best goal-scorer in history of the sport scored his first goal against me."

Hanlon is rooting for Ovechkin too, but he doesn't plan to be there to watch him pass Gretzky or even watch on television from Italy. He'll have to settle for being, perhaps, the lone person on the planet who had an up-close view of Gretzky's and Ovechkin's first NHL goals.

"Even though it's such a great event, I've kind of got my life," Hanlon said. "We're getting down to playoffs here and I'm not going to make a special effort to watch the game and do those things. As he gets closer, I'm caught up with it. I'm excited about it. I'm happy for him. I'm happy for a lot of reasons.

"But I'm not going to stay up until the middle of the night. I'm not a reporter."