With the 2024 NHL season underway, one of the main stories on the ice this season is about the pursuit of one player who previously thought was unreachable.
Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin has begun his 40th year of shying over Wayne Gretzky's 894 career NHL goals all-time high. But with Ovechkin getting off to a hot start to this season, Capitals Star is now Greetzky's shy, achieving an 879 career goal. Goal #16 places Ovechkin on the leaderboard.
That pursuit made us think here SB Nation.
What are the remaining unreachable goals of the sport?
Here is our list.
Jerry Rice's Career Yard
Jerry Rice has 22,895 yards. This is 5,403 yards from Larry Fitzgerald's second place and 9,192 yards from Julio Jones, who has yet to retire, and therefore the main active receivers are Best Received Yard List of All Time. If you look into players who have played under 10 seasons and still may have some big numbers, you'll go to Tyreek Hill. He has 10,601 yards. In other words, he's not even halfway through the meal.
There are even more impressive statistics for Jerry Rice. He turned 30 on October 13, 1992. Since that day he has hauled at 13,546 receiving yards. He ranks 17th in the 1990s when he builds his career in Jerry Rice's receiving yards alone at the age of 30. And don't forget that his 30-year career has included his age at 35, who lost to a broken ACL!
It's the time he achieved all these goat-level numbers. A defensive player can do anything he wants to become an offensive player. The league was doing nothing it could to protect the quarterbacks and wide receivers and boost offensive performances. Joe Montana, Steve Young and others were destroyed by pass rushing, but Rice has to fight a high quality defensive back with him that could become extra physical did. If he gives Rice the rules he's seen now to protect offensive players, he could surpass over 30,000 career yards.
Bruce Smith 200 Career Sack
It may never reach Bruce Smith's 200 career sack.
Smith holds that record for Reggie White with two, but there is a considerable drop-off after two sackmasters. Kevin Green is third on the best ever list with 160 career sacks.
Active leader? Von Miller at 126.5.
Cameron Jordan appears on the active list with a 118.5 bag, but both Miller and Jordan are approaching the end of their respective careers. Pittsburgh Steelers Star TJ Watt may have the most realistic shot as he currently has 103 sacks. However, he needs to put up some monster numbers to get within the true impressive distance of top Smith. For example, Watt needs to match or exceed 15.5 bags of his average annual 15.5 bags over six more seasons to reach Smith.
Emmit Smith 18,355 career rush yards
When Emmitt Smith left the NFL at the end of his long career, he gained his credit as the league's greatest leader ever with 18,355 yards.
He also did so as a member of it. Arizona Cardinalsbut that's a different time story.
The league's active rushing leader? That's Derrick Henry. Baltimore Ravens. In his first year at AFC North, Henry ran for 1,921 yards when the Ravens won the Division.
This put Henry's career mark for 11,423 yards, embarrassing Smith's record for 6,932 yards.
With his career averaged 1,428 yards per season, Henry will need five more seasons of such production to reach that mark. It's possible as Henry is about to play his 10th NFL season, but he needs to maintain an incredible pace to reach Smith.
Beyond Henry, the next active leaders are Ezekiel Elliott (9,130), Joe Mixon (7,428) and Saquon Barkley (7,216).
Wayne Gretzky 1,963 career assists and 2,857 career points
Ovechkin's pursuit of Gretzky's 894 career goals may be what the Capital Star will catch.
However, other Gretzky records, especially his career assist marks and some of his career point marks, are probably out of reach.
For example, when it comes to careers, Sydney Crosby is an active leader, supporting 1,015. That makes Crosby 948 shy about Gretzky's mark.
Crosby is also his 20th NHL season, already hinting at the end of his career.
Pittsburgh Penguin Star is also the active leader of Points, with a total of 1,613. He kicked out Gretzky with 1,244 and Crosby is in his 20th NHL season once again.
The player to watch may be Conor McDavid. The Edmonton Oilers star has joined the 1,000-point club and has become the fourth fastest player in league history, reaching that milestone.
With 1,001 career points, McDavid will need to average 100 points over 18 seasons to reach Greetzky's points record.
Cy Young's 749 career complete game
In modern MLB, the use of relief pitchers is growing. From tracking pitch counts to monitoring player's arm wear and tension, to using players at different stages of the game to close it or bringing out one batter, the complete game is past .
That is, Cy Young's 749's full game mark will never reach, except for a major change in the way sports are played.
why? The active leader of the full game is Justin Verlander.
At 26.
Don Bradman's career test cricket batting average is 99.9
With fewer people following cricket in the US, it's impossible to understand how unbreakable this record may be, but I'm going to give it a try. India's latest cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, had an average batting average of 53.4 runs per game, which is truly surprising.
Australian legend Donald Bradman almost doubled it.
When it comes to RBI in baseball, Albert Pujols is second with 2,218, while Hank Aaron owns the record with 2,297. Imagine Tendulkar is Pujols and Aaron is Bradman. For the record holder to own the record to the extent Bradman does, Hank Aaron needs to have 4,059 RBIs.
Every time Bradman was on the bat, he averaged a century. It's like stepping into the field, hitting 1.5 RBIs per game and doing that throughout your entire career. Nothing will break it.
Cal Ripken Jr. 2,632 consecutive games
Iron Man stands alone in all sports, not just baseball. It's absolutely impossible to win every game on the field for 16 years. Not only is it difficult, it can not only play through the pain, but also avoid minefields for injuries for over a decade.
When athletes push themselves harder than ever, everyone feels that it is absolutely impossible for them to reach this mark again.
14 intercept season for Night Train Lane
Night Train Lane set this record Los Angeles Rams It has been more than 70 years since I returned to 1952. Not only three registered 13 INTs, but Lane did it when the season only had 12 games.
There was a moment in 2021 when Trevon Diggs reached 11 INT, but he was still short with a 17-game season.
Over the past 24 years, only seven players have registered more than 10 players in the season. The best is 11 Diggs. This is the era of Darrelle Revis, Charles Woodson, and Champ Bailey – Hall of Fame Cornerbacks. Nothing was close to 14 INTs.
It's a book from '72, and it's far more to come, and this may be the most unbreakable record in the NFL.
Tiger Woods and Sam Snead's 82 PGA Tour Titles
For over 50 years, Samsnud's record of 82 career PGA Tour titles proved how demanding this achievement was and stood the test of time. His last PGA Tour victory took place at the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open and first appeared in West Virginia in 1936.
And then Tiger Woods came. Between 1996 and 2013, Woods won 79 PGA Tour titles, including 14 major championships. He dominated the sport and won courses such as Torrey Pines, Bayhill, Muirfield Village and Firestone Country Club. His 31 PGA Tour titles appeared in only four courses, including the 2008 US Open.
The injury then bothered him from 2014 to 2018, and at the speed he was doing, he would easily pass Snead's fantastical record. Woods then made a career revival, winning three tournaments in 2018 and 2019, including the Masters. His victory in Japan in 2019, won him number 82, marking the record.
As for today, like Woods did in his prime, there are too many talents in golf for someone to dominate the sport. Think of all the great players who are finding golf in 2025. Scotty Schaufferer, Xander Schauffere and Rory McIlroy came to mind immediately, winning a total of 47 titles. McIlroy currently leads all active PGA Tour pros with 27 career wins, and he only goes for about 10 years of Prime. So this means that no one has caught or sniffed the forest right away.
