Those Caps teams were very good teams. But it’s one thing to be a regular season beast and a playoff one. There is a reason why only 2 presidents trophy winners have won the cup since ‘06, while the last team a Presidents trophy winner made it to the finals was 2011.
No one can say Ovechkin hasn’t had great teams, only lack of players able to elevate themselves in the playoffs. Crosby has had a lot of talented teams too in his career, I think the difference is he had more playoff savy players, especially Malkin. Add his own abilities to up his game, some luck....it’s just one of those things.
Nah. His game did not just magically change during that two month span. Ovechkin has produced and been an effective player almost every postseason but maybe one, by my count. In 2018 all of the stars aligned and he finally got the run support he’d been missing in previous years.
A lot of players finally upped their game too. Look at Kuznetsov. In his 39 playoffs games before 2018, he only had only 19 points with 11 goals and was a -1. Add guys like Wilson and Carlson finding their scoring touch, with secondary scoring coming from guys like Eller, Connelly, and Smith-Pelly. Then you have your big guys like Holtby, Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Oshie...all playing at their highest level.
This is all what really needs to happen in order to win a cup. Things need to be running on all fronts. The Caps gained confidence that hadn’t been there, and they ran with it. Everyone contributed and everyone did their jobs.