BOSTON — When Nikita Zadorov was growing up in Russia, on many mornings, he’d get up and turn on the computer.

Most Washington Capitals games start at 2 a.m. in Moscow, so Zadorov would have to wait until the next morning to see to how Alex Oveckin did.

Zadorov was 10 when Ovechkin broke in in 2005-06 and scored 52 goals as a rookie. Like many Russian kids and adults, he was a fast fan.

“I’d wake up in the morning and go to NHL.com and watch his goals. Watch his highlights,” said Zadorov, now a defenseman for the Bruins. “He was a role model for my generation growing up.”

New Bruins forward Marat Khusnutdinov was a fan growing up too.

“This is a special moment for the whole country,” he said in tentative English. “He’s the top sportsman in Russia. The whole country loves him.”

Russian kids have been waking up and checking Ovechkin highlights for 19 seasons now. Plenty of adults are doing the same now too.

When he comes to TD Garden on Tuesday night to face the Bruins, Ovechkin will bring 890 career goals with him. He’s now just four behind Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career record 894 with nine games left in the regular season.

“He’s very, very impressive, obviously. We all know how hard it is to score in this league. He’s been doing it for almost two decades,” Bruins forward David Pastrnak said. “It’s motivational to see him keep scoring all those goals. He’s definitely a special goal scorer. I watched him a lot growing up. He was and still is a special player to follow and watch his highlights.”

Bruins’ prospect and fellow Russian prospect Georgii Merkulov agreed.

“It’s really big back home,” he said. “Everybone follows. Everyone talks about it. We all hope it’s going to happen this season.”

During his many seasons as an assistant, Bruins interim coach Joe Sacco was in charge of the team’s penalty kill and that meant formulating a plan to stop Ovechkin on the power play.

“Working in this league for a while now and having an opportunity ot oversee the penalty kill some nightmares,” he said. “He’s a guy who have to play close attention to. … The ability to still be able to produce after all these years, knowing you put a game plan in place to try to stop that. It says a lot about the individual.”

There was a point in the season earlier in the year when Ovechkin’s scoring pace made it likely that he could be in range of breaking the record in Tuesday’s game.

“You want him to do it somewhere else that’s for sure,” Sacco said.

Once Ovechkin gets beyond Boston, Zadorov said he’ll be rooting for him.

“I’m cheering for him. Everybody is cheering for him to break that record,” he said. “He’s the greatest goal scorer ever. For him to beat that record, everybody thought it was untouchable, it’ll be unbelievable to see for sure.”

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