EVERY JERSEY IN THE APRIL 19 AUCTION HAS BEEN PHOTO-MATCHED BY MEIGRAY AUTHENTICATED
By Steve Lansdale
It really is a matter of simple math: The Great Eight is better than The Great One. When Wayne Gretzky retired from the National Hockey League after the 1998-99 season, “The Great One” owned the vast majority of the league’s career scoring records, including the most hallowed of all: In 20 NHL seasons, he amassed 894 goals, 93 more than second-place Gordie Howe.
Thought for decades to be unreachable, Gretzky’s 894 goals became the second-highest total in NHL history when Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals – nicknamed “The Great Eight” for his jersey number – fired the 895th of his career past Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders on April 6. The blast from the top of the left circle, often referred to as “Ovi’s Office” because of the number of times he has shot from there, added Sorokin to Ovechkin’s record number of goalies against whom he has scored. Ovechkin gear already was enormously appealing to Capitals, hockey and sports collectors, but his ascent to the top of the goal-scoring mountain immediately lifts that demand to new levels.
This 2013-14 Washington Capitals jersey worn by Alex Ovechkin when he scored his 400th NHL goal is one of 11 game-worn hockey jerseys on offer in the April 19 Heritage & MeiGray Present: The March to Greatness Game Worn Hockey Auction.
Three milestone game-worn Ovechkin jerseys, along with jerseys worn by NHL legends Gretzky, Howe, Mark Messier, Connor McDavid, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews, will find new homes when they are sold April 19 in Heritage & MeiGray Present: The March to Greatness Game Worn Hockey Auction on HA.com.
Every jersey in the auction has been photo-matched by MeiGray Authenticated.
“This is like when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record for career home runs, or LeBron passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record,” says authentication expert and MeiGray President and COO Barry Meisel. “In each case, the previous record had stood for a long time and was thought to be permanently out of reach. But now, just like Hank Aaron and LeBron James, he has claimed the most important individual record in the sport.”
This 1998-99 Wayne Gretzky game-worn New York Rangers jersey has been photo-matched to four games, including the one in which he scored his 892nd career goal.
Ovechkin and Gretzky are the biggest names in the auction, but the event is filled with sweaters worn by the greatest players in hockey’s history.
“The jerseys in this auction represent the best of the best, a veritable Mount Rushmore of hockey,” says Chris Ivy, Heritage’s Director of Sports Auctions. “Wayne Gretzky will always be viewed as the greatest of all time, in my opinion – his jersey number is retired, not just by the teams he played for, but by the entire league – but what Ovechkin has done is incredible and wasn’t thought possible until recent years.
“Then you add in Gordie Howe, Jaromir Jagr, Mark Messier and two of the greatest active players in Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews … this auction is like a Hall of Fame of hockey jerseys.”
Ovechkin’s assault on the record book defies all logic. It is the crown jewel at the top of a list of league records that already includes the most power-play goals, most goals by a left wing, most empty-net goals, most goals in games away from home and most goals with a single team. He scored twice April 4 against Chicago; the first gave him 40 goals in a season for a record 14th time, and the second lifted him out of a tie with Jagr for the most game-winning goals in the history of the league.
“Remember, if not for a couple of lockouts [in 2004 and 2012], he would already have had the career goals record,” Meisel says. “And he has played a long time, but it’s not like 20 years of his jerseys are out there, available. The Capitals have some, and he has a lot, too. He wants to open a museum of his gear – and sticks and jerseys from other players – in Russia after he retires. So while he has played in a lot of games and worn a lot of jerseys, they’re not easy to come by, especially the ones he wore for milestone goals like these.”
This 2010-11 Washington Capitals jersey worn by Ovechkin when he scored his 300th NHL goal has been photo-matched to the Caps’ April 5, 2011, game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The April 19 auction contains three Ovechkin jerseys: the one he wore when he scored his 400th NHL goal – photo-matched to the Caps’ December 20, 2013, game against the Carolina Hurricanes; the jersey he was wearing April 5, 2011, when he scored the 300th goal of his career against the Toronto Maple Leafs; and the sweater he wore February 4, 2025, when he secured his 19th consecutive season in which he scored 25 or more goals.
There are two Gretzky jerseys in the auction as well, including a 1998-99 New York Rangers sweater that was one of the last The Great One ever wore on NHL ice. It has been photo-matched to four games in which he played in January 1999, including the game in which he scored the 892nd of his 894 career goals. It also bears a red heart drawn inside the left “9” on the back by his wife, Janet.
Also in play is a 1991-92 Los Angeles Kings jersey that Gretzky wore four years after being the centerpiece in the biggest trade in NHL history. The swap that sent the league’s most celebrated player in the sport from Edmonton, where he was a national treasure, to Southern California added instant credibility to the evolution of the sport across the southern United States.
Before Gretzky took the league by storm, Howe was the standard by which many NHL players were measured – to this day, a goal, an assist and a fight in a single game is referred to as “a Gordie Howe hat trick.” His 26-year career included six seasons in the World Hockey Association, the first being the 1973-74 season in which he wore this Houston Aeros jersey on his way to being named the league’s MVP when he won the Gary L. Davidson Trophy – an award that later was renamed the Gordie Howe Trophy.
2011 Sidney Crosby Winter Classic game-worn Pittsburgh Penguins jersey photo-matched to the New Year’s Day game against the Washington Capitals
For two decades, mentions of Ovechkin rarely have failed to include a mention of Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby, and this auction is no different. Among the treasures on offer is Crosby’s 2011 Winter Classic Pittsburgh Penguins jersey from the game in which Pittsburgh fittingly played Ovechkin’s Capitals. More than 68,000 fans turned out to Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field to watch the NHL’s two biggest stars face off. A concussion in the game ended Crosby’s season, and later games in which this style of jersey was worn included injuries to Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal and another injury to Crosby, which led the team to permanently shelve jerseys with this design.
Other jerseys in the auction include a 2016-17 Connor McDavid Edmonton Oilers jersey that has been photo-matched to his first game as team captain, a signed and photo-matched 2000-01 Mark Messier New York Rangers jersey, a photo-matched 2020-21 Auston Matthews Toronto Maple Leafs “St. Pats” throwback jersey and the 2013-14 New Jersey Devils jersey Jaromir Jagr wore when he scored his 700th career NHL goal.
STEVE LANSDALE is a staff writer at Intelligent Collector.