Ovi the best shooter in history?

[YippieKaey]

After watching his 50th goal against the VGK which was basically a slapshot from the circle, and after watching about all of his games the last 3 years i believe that Ovechkin should be named the best pure shooter in NHL history. He used to be more dynamic etc but at this point he is basically a legendary shooter who is fairly slow, fumbles the puck etc. But that shot will likely put him in the history books. The only comparable for pure shooting skill is maybe Ray Bourque in my mind but i would love to get some second opinions on this.

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[Michael Farkas]

he is basically a legendary shooter who is fairly slow, fumbles the puck etc.

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.

 

[crobro]

Bossy

 

[YippieKaey]

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.

Yeah i think that's the key. Everyone knows if the puck is on Ovis stick a shot is coming. There's almost no deception but he still scores 46 goals per season 17 years in a row.

 

[YippieKaey]

Bossy

Tell me more. What were his other high-level attributes? Also huge difference in goalies between the two even though i love Bossy too

 

[The Panther]

Tell me more. What were his other high-level attributes? Also huge difference in goalies between the two even though i love Bossy too

Huge differences in hockey sticks, too.

I would really be fascinated to see today's best scorers play a game with 80s'-style wooden sticks to see who would still be able to snipe and who wouldn't.

 

[crobro]

Tell me more. What were his other high-level attributes? Also huge difference in goalies between the two even though i love Bossy too

Extremely quick release have never seen anyone other than Simmer with that quick shot

 

[BallardEra]

Yeah i think that's the key. Everyone knows if the puck is on Ovis stick a shot is coming. There's almost no deception but he still scores 46 goals per season 17 years in a row.

50.28 goals a season over 82 games.

 

[JackSlater]

From players I've seen I'd go with Ovechkin or Lemieux. Ovechkin more power, Lemieux more accuracy, but neither lacking in either dimension. Lemieux a bit more versatility in the shot arsenal.

 

[YippieKaey]

50.28 goals a season over 82 games.

Oh really? I thought it was slightly lower. Cool thanks

 

[Albatros]

I'd argue he's even played with some better shooters, like Semin.

 

[bobholly39]

Not to be negative here but.....is he?

He's a volume shooter. And I don't mean that in a bad way - you have to shoot to score, and he's better than anyone at shooting often enough to create and generate goals, which in turn makes him the greatest at goal-scoring.

But shooting? His shooting % has generally been pretty low.

Lemieux had seasons of 24 and 27% shooting percentage. Gretzky had high ones too. Bossy was above 20% every season except his last one. And this wasn't just in the 80s for Lemieux. When Bure scored 59 goals in 2001 to win the rocket in the dead puck era, his shooting % was 15.4, and Lemieux came in with a 20.4

If you take the years of 1985 to 2001 - Lemieux is first in shooting % among those with 300 + goals 0.9% over#2.

If you do the same for Ovechkin from 2005 to 2022 - he's 12th, and he's almost 4% behind Stamkos. If you change the threshold to 200 goals instead of 300, he falls to 44th place. And the top 3 are Draisaitl, Matthews & Stamkos.

I don't think Ovechkin is the greatest shooter ever - he's not even a really great one per se. He's a great goal-scorer - but he needs more shots to score than others.

 

[bobholly39]

One more thing - since Semin was brought up - he also sits at 12.9% shooting percentage tied with Ovechkin from 2005 to 2022 in 44th place.

He may have had a lethal shot, but if he wasn't consistent enough at making it lethal, I don't think he belongs in the conversation. Consistency should be pretty important in this discussion

 

[Michael Farkas]

So net-mouth crasher Craig Simpson is the best shooter ever...? Or even in the conversation...?

Shooting percentage, like save percentage, isn't all that relevant when evaluating what a player is doing, can do, or how a game is won...

 

[The Panther]

So net-mouth crasher Craig Simpson is the best shooter ever...? Or even in the conversation...?

Shooting percentage, like save percentage, isn't all that relevant when evaluating what a player is doing, can do, or how a game is won...

People like to dismiss that stat like Simpson was a nobody, but he wasn't. He was an awesome player.

To this day, I still say Simpson is the best shooter I've ever seen one-on-one with the goaltender, and yes that includes Lemieux.

There is a reason Simpson has the best shooting percentage in the RS, and by far the best shooting percentage in the playoffs.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

shooting percentage… well is shaq (career FG% in the high 500s) a better shooter than steph curry (career FG% below .500)?

50 in 50 is nice, how about 50 at 50 if he's playing 15 years from now...Jesus...

i think 50 at 50 is not off the table…

i was just thinking last night about who the great athletes are all time, in the sense that their bodies were like machines built to play the game and never fail or break down.

howe, jagr, kareem abdul jabbar, kobe bryant, lebron, ovie. it feels almost like homer’s description of achilles in the iliad, only without the heel (except kobe of course, who literally tore his achilles).

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

No. He's a great shooter obv. But he took the most shots all time in 08-09 and only scored 56 as an example

 

[DRW895]

Very very close

 

[Michael Farkas]

Maybe one of the math whizzes will come in and tell me I'm a klutz, but all things being equal, if Ovechkin took 1,000 shots in a season and only scored on 10% of them, I'd be pretty happy if he was on my team...

 

[K Fleur]

Yeah the “takes too many shots” thing is kinda dumb. I’m more partial to more balanced offensive players but if you have Ovechkin you tell him to take as many shots as he f***ing wants too.

 

[Vilica]

I've been tracking something that might happen this year that hasn't happened since the lockout - nobody has both averaged more than 3 shots a game and shot above 20%. Stamkos's 60 goal season came the closest at 19.8% shooting, but no other full season (he did do it in 13-14 but in only 37 games). This year both Draisaitl and Kreider have locked up the 3 shots/game (well Kreider needs 1 more shot), and they're at 20.5 and 20.8 shooting percentage, so a small dry spell at the end of the year could knock them both below (Draisaitl 8 shots, Kreider 9). The point of mentioning this is to show that in the modern NHL, you can concentrate on shot volume or shot accuracy, you can't really do both.

The dismissal of Ovechkin's volume shooting, and how that means he's never on top on shooting percentage, ignores the fact that he's still solidly in the top third percentile, while generating massive shot volume. There are 344 forwards since the lockout who have scored 100 goals, and Ovechkin is basically tied for 100th in shooting percentage. The median shooting percentage is 12%, so Ovechkin is like 7.5% above the median (the top shooter, Alex Tanguay, is just about 50% higher than the median). The median shots per game of those 344 players is 2.25, so Ovechkin is approximately 211% above the median (Rick Nash in second place is about 56% higher than the median, and depending on if you use Matthews 3.86 shots/game or Nash's 3.53 shots/game, Ovechkin's 4.76 shots/game is 23.3% or 34.8% above 2nd place in generating shots).

I did this calculation awhile ago, and I think it is correct, but if you take just the games played by both Bobby Hull and Alex Ovechkin, ignoring any they missed, Hull took 4539 of the Hawks 27951 shots on goal in his career, or 16.2%. Through 18-19, Ovechkin had taken 5234 of the Capitals 32412 shots on goal, or 16.1%. Two goal-scoring wingers 35-50 years apart, exact same share of shots.

This NHL stats page possibly illustrates his shot the best - NHL Stats.

Since the Capitals moved to the 1-3-1 in 12-13, he's generating the most shot attempts/60, and still shooting a higher percentage than most of his peers in high volume - basically Stamkos, Laine, Pastrnak and Matthews the only ones more accurate. In terms of PPG/60, despite Ovechkin's massive TOI gap, he's still tied for 2nd in PPG/60, 2% behind Pastrnak in 1st. All that extra TOI, with 2nd units, and yet Ovechkin is at the very top in PPG/60.

 

[filinski77]

Not to be negative here but.....is he?

He's a volume shooter. And I don't mean that in a bad way - you have to shoot to score, and he's better than anyone at shooting often enough to create and generate goals, which in turn makes him the greatest at goal-scoring.

But shooting? His shooting % has generally been pretty low.

Lemieux had seasons of 24 and 27% shooting percentage. Gretzky had high ones too. Bossy was above 20% every season except his last one. And this wasn't just in the 80s for Lemieux. When Bure scored 59 goals in 2001 to win the rocket in the dead puck era, his shooting % was 15.4, and Lemieux came in with a 20.4

If you take the years of 1985 to 2001 - Lemieux is first in shooting % among those with 300 + goals 0.9% over#2.

If you do the same for Ovechkin from 2005 to 2022 - he's 12th, and he's almost 4% behind Stamkos. If you change the threshold to 200 goals instead of 300, he falls to 44th place. And the top 3 are Draisaitl, Matthews & Stamkos.

I don't think Ovechkin is the greatest shooter ever - he's not even a really great one per se. He's a great goal-scorer - but he needs more shots to score than others.

I think there's a couple important things to also consider:

1) Shot distance -> Ovechkin quite often shoots from much further areas than many players with higher shooting %'s. Taking shots from the top of the circle frequently will inherently lower your shooting %.

2) Shooting % isn't even a great metric for comparing overall shooting "ability", since you'd have to assume that players are only taking high-quality shots. For example, Ovechkin could have a shooting lane that might not be a high quality chance, but he knows his shot is lethal, so he decides to just get it on net. Often, getting a puck on net is better than:
a) Passing and having it: intercepted; fumbled; or go to a player with no better of a scoring opportunity
b) Dumping it in

Ovechkin might not be the best shooter of all-time (his scoring ability is a mixture of his shot, offensive IQ, and ability to get shot opportunities off), but he's got a very diverse set of shots in his arsenal:
1) Possibly the best (or 2nd best) one-timer in NHL history
2) One of the top wrist/snap shot releases
3) One of the best shooting in-stride shot abilities

 

[DRW895]

No. He's a great shooter obv. But he took the most shots all time in 08-09 and only scored 56 as an example

Different penguins fans always write the same silly things about Ovechkin. If another player tries to take the same number of shooting attempts he probably will have Scott Gomez shooting percentage

 

[Boxscore]

This is tricky. Ovechkin's one-timer is deadly and he certainly warrants the label as best shooter. However, if I'm being honest, when it comes to the best goal scorers, I rank them like this...

BEST PURE SHOOTER
Brett Hull
Mike Bossy
Alex Ovechkin

BEST GOAL SCORER
Mario Lemieux
Alex Ovechkin
Maurice Richard

BEST GOAL COMPILER
Wayne Gretzky
Alex Ovechkin
Mike Bossy

... I don't know how else to explain it. Ovechkin is a goal scoring machine who does it with shot, durability, consistency and longevity. Gretzky is the greatest goal compiler of all-time until Ovechkin breaks his record.

But, in isolation, Brett Hull is the best "shooter" I've ever seen and Mario is the greatest "goal scorer" I've ever seen, mostly due to his arsenal and spectrum of ways he could destroy goaltenders -- slap shot, wrister, backhand, deke, top shelf, five-hole, bank shot, through his own legs, etc. Lemieux's goal scoring toolbox was unmatched in my opinion -- the only thing that limited him were injuries, cancer, and shorter career.

If it came down to one game and all of humanity was hanging in the balance, I put my faith in Mario to score a goal over anyone in history.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Different penguins fans always write the same silly things about Ovechkin. If another player tries to take the same number of shooting attempts he probably will have Scott Gomez shooting percentage

Jeff Carter was 2nd with 46 goals on 342 shots. Ovechkin took 528 shots and had 56