Alex Ovechkin eclipsing Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career record for goals has renewed a debate: Who would be on hockey’s Mt. Rushmore?

The correct answer: Nobody.

There will never be a Mt. Rushmore for hockey, or baseball, or football, or anything but Mt. Rushmore.

Mt. Rushmore doesn’t even seem to be designed to honor the best U.S. presidents.

How many have Teddy Roosevelt on their list of top four chief executives, even as of 1927 when the project kicked off? I’m a James Madison man. But Roosevelt did carry a big stick, like Ovechkin.

Nobody will carve the faces of four hockey players into the side of a mountain. Not in South Dakota, nor anywhere else.

So, it doesn’t matter who those four players would be.

It’s a device of lazy sports media. Like rankings, ratings, report cards, mock drafts, any list. (Guilty as charged, but a lot less than most.)

As long as we’re ranking, this space has mentioned that Ovechkin having the most goals doesn’t necessarily make him the best goal-scorer.

That’s to be reiterated. Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy would be on my Mt. Rushmore of goal-scorers.

If Lemieux had been healthy and cancer-free, he’d have scored 1,000 goals. (To be exact, had Lemieux played as many games as Ovechkin and Gretzky and maintained his career average of .75 goals per game, Lemieux would have scored 1,119 goals. Ovechkin and Gretzky are each at .60 goals per game.)

But Ovechkin is a worthy king, a class act and, at 39, somehow still the face of the NHL along with Sidney Crosby, 37. Whatever it is Ovechkin and Crosby still have, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon never got. (McDavid’s a sourpuss. Nobody likes a sourpuss.)

The reaction to Ovechkin breaking the record this past Sunday was so typically hockey.

As was the buildup: Respectably done, but never really kicking into overdrive. Hockey hype doesn’t have that extra gear.

The NHL’s reaction reel included the mandatory smattering of female athletes as well as actor Dave Coulier. If we were going to hear from a “Full House” cast member, give me Bob Saget (X-rated version). Gone but not forgotten.

Stephen A. Smith, who hates hockey, tried to talk about Ovechkin making history on ESPN’s “First Take.” Smith, Shannon Sharpe and ex-NHL player P.K. Subban quickly transitioned into comparing LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. In a segment intended to discuss Ovechkin. It was surreal. ESPN is all LeBron, all the time.

Where will Ovechkin go from here?

He’s 39. He has 895 goals. He has 42 goals in 61 games this season despite missing six weeks with a broken leg. Can Ovechkin get to 1,000 goals?

What about Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals? They’re a surprising No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference this season after being the final team to qualify for last year’s playoffs.

Will the Capitals’ adrenaline dissipate after driving Ovechkin to his record? Will Ovechkin exhale, then fade? The Capitals haven’t won a playoff series since winning the Stanley Cup in 2018.

Gretzky jumped on the Ovechkin train as it neared the final stop and was, unsurprisingly, pure class.

Ovechkin’s chase was a reminder that NHL players aren’t jerks. As opposed to pretty much every other pro league.