Alex Ovechkin came crashing down to Earth on Sunday
night. His three goals in the two
previous games were parlayed into zero points and a -3 performance against the
Flyers. Ovechkin’s only highlight
came when the Capitals fearless leader turned the puck over in horrendous fashion
behind his net that led to a Flyer shorthanded goal. Granted it was the Capitals’ third game in four nights, but
they had the Flyers dead to rights and they let them slip away. A big part of that had to do with
Dmitry Orlov’s hit on Brayden Schenn, but in a game where the announcers were
comparing it to a playoff atmosphere it is no surprise to Caps fans that
Ovechkin was nowhere to be found.
Call it fatigue, call it an Olympic hangover finally setting in, or call
it teams defending Ovechkin and his line mates harder than the rest of the
team. Whatever the reason for Ovechkin’s lack of success in highly
adverse situations, the continued prevalence of these performances now raises
the question; would another first or second round playoff exit this season mark
the beginning of the end for Ovechkin’s ability to win a Stanley Cup as an
elite goal scorer? Ovechkin’s
scoring renaissance over the last two years has carried the Capitals through
the regular season, but it maybe masking an inevitable meeting with an
inescapable foe that could forever hinder Ovechkin’s ability to carry a team
through the playoffs in the future. That foe is time.
If
the Capitals fail to make the playoffs, or have an early exit yet again, that
means they will begin next season with a 29-year-old Alex Ovechkin who
hopefully will be coming off his first 50 plus goal season in four years. Jewels from the Crown has a great
spreadsheet of all the players who have ever scored 50 goals in a season and
the age at which they achieved that feat.
The success of the players who have done it at age 29 and older may give
Caps fans a reason to press the panic button. Only 20 players in NHL history have put up 50 goals in a
season at age 29 or older and shockingly none of them are named Gretzky (his
last 50 goal season was at 28).
Alright, maybe more than you were thinking, but only eight of those
players had a fifty goal season past 30: Marcel Dionne at 31, Phil Esposito at
31 and 32, Mario Lemieux at 31, Bobby Hull at 33, Jaromir Jagr at 33, Joe Sakic
at 31, John Bucyk at 35, and Joe Mullen at 31. All others had their 50 goal seasons at age 29 or 30. Of the twenty, only five had multiple
50-goal seasons at 29 or older: Marcel Dionne (3), Phil Esposito (4), Mario
Lemieux (2), Dave Andreychuck (2), and Bobby Hull (2). All of this means that when Ovechkin
starts next season at age 29, he may not have very many years left to lead the
Capitals with his scoring touch, and the Stanley Cup numbers out of this group
of twenty is cause for even more concern.
Seven of these players were able to win Stanley Cups after age 29: Phil Esposito,
Brett Hull, Dave Adreychuck, Joe Sakic, John Bucyk, Joe Mullen, and Lanny
McDonald. Five of them did it with
the team they had their fifty goal seasons with: Esposito, Sakic, Bucyk,
Mullen, and McDonald, but only three did it in a season where they scored 50
goals. Those were Sakic with the
Avalanche in 2001, Mullen with the Flames in 1989, and Esposito with the Bruins
in 1972. So not only are
Ovechkin’s chances at having these 50 goals season limited, his chances of
having these seasons translate into post season relevance are dwindling as
well. This means that the
Capitals’ success this season is of dire importance to the continued scoring
revival of Alex Ovechkin, and it will be a key factor in his evolution as team
captain and whether or not he can lead the Capitals to the Promised Land.
Ovechkin’s
season thus far makes one think that he should be playing with a chip on his
shoulder, especially after the Russians’ debacle in Sochi. If he doesn’t win this year, or at
least make it to the conference finals, it may spell disaster for the Caps’
chance at winning a Cup with Ovechkin at the helm. It would mean that even with a reborn 50 goal scoring Alex
Ovechkin the Capitals still cannot achieve post season success. With
history telling us that those 50 goal season maybe coming to an end it is hard
to imagine a Capitals team hoisting the Stanley Cup any time soon unless things
begin to change. Ovechkin needs to
realize that he must evolve as a leader to help his team win in ways other than
scoring, and the Capitals must realize that they need to start putting the
right pieces around Ovechkin to supplement his scoring as it inevitably decreases. If not then the Capitals can take pride
in having a top goal scorer for maybe another two to three years before his
scoring declines, and we can continue to talk about how the trophy case in the Verizon Center continues to lack the most important piece of them all
.
