The awards argument in favor of Ovi holds zero water given Crosby had about 2.5 years of his prime wiped out by a head shot and a freak slap shot to the jaw. The former was in no way an accident and holding it against Sid is absurd, especially considering it robbed him of his most dominant season.
Crosby would have likely scored 60+ goals in 2010, easily winning the Rocket, Hart, Ross, and every other award had Steckel not ran his elbow into 87's head and Crosby again, wins the Hart/Ross in 2013 (while also taking one away from Ovi) had he not taken a slap shot 10 feet wide of the net (thanks Orpik) about a month before the end of that campaign. A campaign in which it took the field almost the entire final month to catch and pass Sid in points. That's how far ahead of everyone 87 was before a freak injury which rarely happens as it were.
So right there you have Hart #3 and #4 for 87 + another 2 AR's which puts him at 4. And it's not remotely controversial to project those awards given how much better he was in 2010 and 2013 vs the field. He played half and roughly 3/4 of those 2 seasons so we're not talking a small sample size in either case. And he was in the absolute prime of his career so trying to project a poor half or quarter of a year would be a stretch to say the least.
Don't talk to me about AS nods either, given the talent disparity (and games missed for Sid) between LW and C over the last 17 seasons. How many HOF caliber wingers has Ovi been fighting with for AS votes since 2005?
The ONLY legitimate argument that Ovi has is goals, which is lame anyway given we're just going by a raw # and not taking into account shot volume vs his peers or the absurd tilt in favor of goals vs someone like Sid who's been the best at both goal scoring and play making in the NHL. Ovi is incredibly goal dependent to produce points. He's not a well rounded offensive threat. Never has been.
And durability. That's it. It's not enough. Literally every other aspect of the game is comfortably in Sid's favor today.
Sid's easily the better all around player. Non sane person argues this.
He's easily the better point producer on a per game basis (I mean he's literally been a PPG or better player every single year from the time he entered the league and just put up 84 in 69 pushing 35 years of age). 17 seasons at that rate is absurd, when you consider the names above him. Gretzky. That's it. He needs 2 more seasons to equal Wayne and from the looks of it, should have a very real chance of doing so. Sure, a couple of those years were abbreviated significantly, but again, on a per game basis, there isn't a single abbreviated year you can point to and go, yeah, Sid surely wasn't finishing with 82+ in 82 games.
He's easily the better postseason player (he's nearing Jagr for 5th all time in playoff points, at 197 currently, and is 3rd all time in multi point playoff games at 66 (nearly double Ovi's total) behind only Gretzky and Messier and has a decent shot at passing the latter for 2nd all time), not to mention vastly more accomplished on the international stage despite having far fewer tournaments to his name.
3 Cups on 4 trips, back to back titles, back to back Smythe's, etc, etc. He's led the playoffs in goals, in assists, in points, etc, etc.
I don't care if Ovechkin scores 900+ goals. He's going to break Gretzky's record because he legitimately cares about individual awards and will stick around until he passes 99, which is a stark contrast to Sid's motivation in this game. It's an incredible stat but it's not enough to put him over Crosby. A single stat cannot give you the crown in a robust overview between 2 players.
At the end of the day, all of these discussions won't move the needle for most. Washington people, nearly across the board will vote Ovi. Same goes for Pittsburgh fans in regards to Sid. The difference is the majority of neutral fans will give the nod to Sid based largely on content above this paragraph and thread on the whole.
