The League’s traveling party led by Bettman and Gretzky will be at every Capitals game until he breaks the record. But this isn’t as simple as just getting on a plane and reserving a suite in the arena to be there for history.

“We’re treating this game and every game he plays like a Stanley Cup Playoff game,” NHL president of content, events and productions Steve Mayer said. “We’ve traveled camera crews from all over. It’s the crews that do all the all-access shows. We’re micing up like everyone. We’re working with the networks with mics and additional cameras. You have reporters from networks traveling. People are treating it almost like a Stanley Cup Final game.”

For perspective, the Hurricanes on Wednesday had to make room for 46 camera positions throughout the arena for TNT, Monumental Sports Network, FanDuel Sports Network, NHL productions, and digital crews from the Capitals, Hurricanes and the NHL.

On Jan. 9, when the Toronto Maple Leafs were at Lenovo Center for a nationally televised game on ESPN+ and TSN, the Hurricanes had 26 video camera positions in use.

On Friday, when the Montreal Canadiens were here with their substantial traveling media group there were 70 occupied seats in the press box. On Wednesday, there were more than 100, many of which were added after Ovechkin scored his 891st goal in Boston on Tuesday.

Emily Kaplan was here for ESPN doing SportsCenter hits throughout the day from the arena.

Bettman was in the building doing interviews with all three networks broadcasting the game (TNT, FanDuel Sports Network, Monumental Sports Network). He was originally scheduled to do a pregame press conference, but travel delays due to weather in Toronto forced that to be cancelled.

The Hurricanes expanded their press conference room to the layout they use in the playoffs, allowing Ovechkin to do a postgame press conference in front of a special backdrop featuring the NHL shield and the GR8 CHASE logo.