President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia congratulated the hockey participant Alex Ovechkin on Monday for breaking the N.H.L.’s goal-scoring document.
Mr. Ovechkin, 39, captain of the Washington Capitals, scored his 895th career goal on Sunday afternoon in a recreation in opposition to the New York Islanders. That broke a document set by Wayne Gretzky that had stood for 26 years.
In a press release on Monday, Mr. Putin praised Mr. Ovechkin, who began out as an expert hockey participant in Moscow, for the “momentous achievement” that he known as “a real trigger for celebration for followers in Russia and past.”
The sports activities feat — and the feedback from the Kremlin — have put a contemporary highlight on Mr. Ovechkin’s past support for Mr. Putin and on the hockey star’s stance on the warfare in Ukraine.
Mr. Ovechkin, who has performed for the Washington Capitals since 2005, has lived in the USA for the previous 20 years. However his Instagram profile picture exhibits him with Mr. Putin, and in 2017, he began a social media movement called #PutinTeam, months earlier than Russia’s elections.
The hockey star additionally raised eyebrows in 2022 when he did not concern an outright condemnation of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When requested about it at a information convention, Mr. Ovechkin mentioned, “Please, no extra warfare.” In response to a query about whether or not he nonetheless supported Mr. Putin, Mr. Ovechkin mentioned, “He’s my president,” however added, “I’m not in politics. I’m an athlete.”
In his postgame remarks on Sunday, Mr. Ovechkin celebrated the achievement with a flurry of gratitude for his fellow gamers — and mentioned, “Russia, we did it!”
On Monday, Russian state tv celebrated the athlete as “our pleasure, a Russian hockey participant who made historical past,” drawing “admiration on each side of the Atlantic.”
Professional-Putin pundits had been fast to grab on Mr. Ovechkin’s achievements after the record-setting objective.
“Ovechkin has confirmed many occasions he isn’t afraid and never ashamed of being Russian, even when Russians have been bullied for being Russian,” Sergei Markov, a political scientist with hyperlinks to the Kremlin, wrote on social media. “That is one other factor that everybody in Russia is grateful to Ovechkin for, in addition to the respect he has gained on this planet — not only for the hockey.”
Mr. Ovechkin has not competed for Russia internationally since 2019, and the Russian nationwide crew has been banned from international competitions by the Worldwide Ice Hockey Federation for the reason that full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The warfare has been a contentious concern in worldwide sports activities, with Russian athletes coming below stress to sentence the warfare.
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