Our Wednesday Wizengamot column is all about passing judgment on sports issues in the forefront of collective consciousness. Usually ripped right from the mediot headlines of the day, we take a firm ethical/legal/moral position that needs to be stated. To be clear, we honestly don’t follow too many sports-news sources these days, as the hyperbole that dominates the headlines to drive web traffic is pathetic.

Our topic today is the National Hockey League and the all-time, goal-scoring record just set by Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin. We respect him a lot, as evidenced by the awards we granted him in our NHL Saturday miniseries for such topics: three Hart nods (the last one in 2015), which is the same number of times he won the media vote. His 895 goals—and counting—are an impressive achievement, to be sure.

However, goal scoring is one of those statistics that is reflective of many facets in the game, and likewise, a good goal scorer is not always a good hockey player. While he is now No. 1 in goals scored, Ovechkin is just No. 56 all time in assists—behind current players like Sidney Crosby (No. 10); Patrick Kane (No. 27); Anže Kopitar (No. 28); Evgeni Malkin (No. 29); and his own teammate Nicklas Bäckström (No. 45), for starters.

In terms of overall points? Ovechkin is still 302 points behind No. 2 all time in that category. He’d probably need to play at least four more full regular seasons to catch Jaromír Jágr for that silver-medal slot. Considering he will be in his age-40 season next year, we doubt Ovechkin has that in him. In essence, what we see is a dominant one-dimensional player, and that is great as long as it’s kept in context. So … is it?

Not really. While the mediots fawn all over Ovechkin passing Wayne Gretzky for this singular record, it’s rare any sports “expert” will note that Ovechkin trails the Great One on the all-time points list by 1,238 points—more than the number of goals he has scored. So, while Gretzky was scoring goals, he also was dishing out assists to his teammates and their goal-scoring prowess to the tune of some insane rate.

Yeah, part of it was the era Gretzky played in, for sure, but still: Ovechkin has 1,239 fewer assists than Gretzky. Let that sink in for a moment. He hasn’t had more than 40 assists in a single season since 2011, and he has had plenty of talented teammates. One can argue that goal scoring is the sum of all the team’s parts, and the goal scorer himself is just the beneficiary of his teammates’ excellent play. Sure, it takes talent …

But it takes more talent to set up a guy to score, and that’s reflected in the assists count, among other statistics. Ovechkin is a great goal scorer, but he’s not much of anything else, really. He’s like a big home-run hitter in baseball who can’t get on base much, otherwise. Only five times in his 20 seasons has he managed to post more assists than goals scored, and he’s done it just once in the last eight years. Ouch.

So, if he’s a on-trick pony? He’s an exceptional one-trick pony, but a player who doesn’t necessarily make the guys around him better, either. Maybe that’s why there’s only one Stanley Cup in his career; we know that’s not a fair assessment, though, due to the many factors involved in winning an NHL title. Still … the Capitals have won 11 division titles during his long career, and that should have translated better into Cups.

If he’s the top dog and the captain, etc., his leadership could have been more impactful. It’s just context.