Careful now.
But to your actual point, Ovechkin is way up there on the pantheon of shooters of all time. I think there's an important distinction to make. Are we talking pure shot? If so, there's a really good case he's the best shooter ever. Wrist shot, wrist shot in stride, catch and release, the one-timer which he has scored an unfathomable amount of goals with, it's there.
One thing that's interesting about Ovechkin is that his in-close finishing ability, the finishing moves aren't amazing in the context of him maybe being the best shooter ever. Now, to further clarify, I don't mean "aren't amazing" in the context of the league. I mean, "aren't amazing" in the context of, say, 500 goal scorers. 600 goal scorers, whatever.
So, if you factor in in-close finishing and then, of course, backhand - I don't know how many goals he has that are intentional backhand finishes...you could argue Lemieux I think.
But if you're saying: I need a 30 foot shot to go in the net. It's tough to say that that's not Ovechkin because even in his advanced age and all that...he still just throws the puck in the net whenever. 50 in 50 is nice, how about 50 at 50 if he's playing 15 years from now...Jesus...
One thing that's interesting too is that you know Ovechkin is gonna shoot, right? I mean, forget the left dot power play thing...but if Ovechkin has it, it's going to the net. So as a goalie, you know this is coming. As a goalie, you don't lose track of Ovechkin. If Lemieux is coming in or whoever, there's a chance it's a pass...with Ovechkin, probably not. And he still scores. All the time. The lack of relative offensive balance, might actually be just enough to convince me that he's the all time best shooter.
It's funny, I still wonder - and this won't age well as time continues on and we forget him - if the best wrist shot I've ever seen doesn't belong to Alex Semin.
