Before there was Alex Ovechkin, there was Peter Bondra. But before there was Peter Bondra, there was Mike Gartner, a future Hall of Fame winger who was drafted fourth overall in 1979 and left Washington a decade later as the franchise’s all-time leader in goals (397) and points (789).
Gartner’s Caps records have been smashed to bits in the interim, and when Ovechkin passed him for seventh place (709) on the NHL’s all-time goal-scoring list a few years back, Garts had nothing but kind words for the guy whose jersey will hang next to his in the rafters before too long.