What were career expectations for Alex Ovechkin? Did he overachieve/disappoint?

[bobholly39]

I find Sidney Crosby to be an easier player to talk about in this sense even with just 1 year difference - as he was one of the most hyped prospects ever. Him, Lindros, McDavid and other Canadian prodigies, all super hyped, and easy to talk about their careers vs expectations (Crosby hailed as the new Gretzky). We recently had a thread talking about Crosby vs expectations, and thought it could be an interesting conversation with Ovi.

Alex Ovechkin will go down as the greatest goal-scorer ever (maybe some disagree and have him #2 or 3, but certainly in that vicinity). He'll also go down as one of the greatest wingers of all-time. Top 2-6 or so, depending on who you ask.

He's 34 as of this posting and still going strong. Pacing for 55+ goals and a potential 9th rocket. Arguably the best player on the best team in the league too - so a potential conn smythe favorite too. Point is - even at 34 - he may not be done adding significant pieces to his resume, but we'll see.

I know he was a very highly touted prospect. I wasn't following draft as closely in 2004, so i'm not really sure what that means. Was he seen as a potential best goal-scorer ever? Was he seen as someone who might challenge a Gretzky/Lemieux (as Crosby was 1 year later). Did anyone expect him to win multiple hart/lindsay and ross - and especially all those rockets? Was he just seen as a pretty decent player likely to have a very good career (like a Matthews/Eichel recently)?

How did he do vs expectations? I assume he blew them out of the water, but i don't know.

Click to read more...

 

[Staniowski]

He was a very big prospect and was known from a young age - probably 14 or so - to be a big NHL prospect.

He was regarded as an all-around player, good defensively, etc., aggressive, dominant.

But not as good a goal scorer as Kovalchuk, who was 2 years older.

I remember there was one scout who had said Kovalchuk might be the best prospect since Lemieux, but there were more scouts who said Ovechkin was the best prospect since Lindros and Lemieux, I think.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Being the number 1 pick in any draft tells you he was highly rated.

Because he played only in Russia before the draft he wasn't considered a Crosby or Lindros type prospect. After his rookie season, expectation grew
dramatically.

 

[Michael Farkas]

He's led the league in goals seven times, and is in the conversation for an eighth...even if that doesn't come free of some warts, no one could have really expected this kind of otherworldly goal dominance...he was and is great for the league as a whole too...

 

[JackSlater]

My memory is that Ovechkin was expected to be a better, maybe more well rounded Kovalchuk. I recall the hype really taking off after his hat trick against USA at the 2003 WJC. I can't imagine saying that Ovechkin had fallen short of expectations.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yeah, so many top prospects get all the credit for two-way play or how smart they are or whatever...it's a game of telephone...Malkin, Ovechkin, Stamkos, all those guys were considered two-way forces, not one of them is even close to that...

 

[tarheelhockey]

I don't know how anyone could possibly make an argument that he has disappointed. I think everyone expected a dominant goal scorer along the lines of a Brett Hull, but with a physical edge like an Iginla. Blend those two players together and you get something like young Ovechkin.

For a long time there was a largely baseless argument that he was an underarchiever because he didn't really care about the Cup, couldn't lead a team, choked in the playoffs. Then he won the Cup and the Smythe and the playoff goal race, and that was the end of that.

The only real criticism I've seen leveled at him since then was the other day, when someone was going on about how he is more one-dimensional than he used to be. I don't see it, but then again it seems like an argument based in utterly unrealistic expectations of a 34-year-old winger.

IMO he has exceeded expectations by a pretty substantial margin. Instead of a rich man's Brett Hull, we got a rich man's Bobby Hull.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I could see someone being disappointed based on the level he hit from 2008-2010 that he didn’t continue being the best player in the world, but no one should be disappointed based on what was expected of him prior to 2005-06. We don’t get perpetually healthy superstars that often.

 

[GMR]

I don't know how anyone could possibly make an argument that he has disappointed. I think everyone expected a dominant goal scorer along the lines of a Brett Hull, but with a physical edge like an Iginla. Blend those two players together and you get something like young Ovechkin.

For a long time there was a largely baseless argument that he was an underarchiever because he didn't really care about the Cup, couldn't lead a team, choked in the playoffs. Then he won the Cup and the Smythe and the playoff goal race, and that was the end of that.

The only real criticism I've seen leveled at him since then was the other day, when someone was going on about how he is more one-dimensional than he used to be. I don't see it, but then again it seems like an argument based in utterly unrealistic expectations of a 34-year-old winger.

IMO he has exceeded expectations by a pretty substantial margin. Instead of a rich man's Brett Hull, we got a rich man's Bobby Hull.

Well, his plus/minus is underwhelming considering the Capitals are a perennial contender. Just look at the last few years.

2017 season +6
2018 season +3
2019 season +8
2020 season -9

You'd expect a better plus/minus on one of the league's top teams.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Well, his plus/minus is underwhelming considering the Capitals are a perennial contender. Just look at the last few years.

2017 season +6
2018 season +3
2019 season +8
2020 season -9

You'd expect a better plus/minus on one of the league's top teams.

This is like scratching your head over why Jameis Winston has a better QB rating than Dan Marino. Nobody takes plus minus seriously in 2020.

 

[tony d]

He's going to go down as being one of the top #1 picks ever. Chances are before he retires he's the top left winger and goal scorer of all time. As far from a disappointment as anything.

 

[quoipourquoi]

This is like scratching your head over why Jameis Winston has a better QB rating than Dan Marino. Nobody takes plus minus seriously in 2020.

I mean, I wouldn’t sort the entire league by plus-minus and try to gauge anything based on it, but it’s like hockey’s equivalent of an elevated temperature in that it might be a symptom that something is going wrong.

Like in this case, we know that Ovechkin has (in less than 50 games) already been on the ice for more ESGA than he was in five different seasons in his career (ranging between 72-82 games). Washington has a middle of the pack save percentage and had the 10th fewest GA, so while they’re not exactly a top defensive team, they’re not so bad that a good line shouldn’t be able to out score what it’s giving up.

 

[GMR]

This is like scratching your head over why Jameis Winston has a better QB rating than Dan Marino. Nobody takes plus minus seriously in 2020.

Nobody? I would beg to differ. It can be overrated but like all other stats, it has to be viewed in context.

They have the best record in the league, however, their star player is a -9. How do you explain that? He's not playing for the Red Wings. Do he and his linemates do all their scoring on the powerplay? Are he and his linemates just poor in their own zone? Or is plus/minus a stat nobody cares about unless it helps their argument?

 

[TheGuiminator]

When you're known as the greatest goal scorer of all time at 34 years old, this is nothing but over achievement IMO.

But then again, it all comes down to your expectations you had toward him

Personally, I thought Ovechkin would be done by 30 considering how physical and dynamic he was in his early 20's. Righfully so, he proved me wrong. He adapted well and became a smarter player over the years. His overall offensive production did drop alot after 2010, but guess what ? He's still collecting the Rocket trophies year after year and still netting +50 goals routinely, which make him arguably the most consistent goal scorer ever.

Before the 2017-18 season, I had Ovechkin way below Crosby in all-time ranking, but winning the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe really cemented his legacy and now I have Crosby slightly ahead of him, because I put alot of value on overall resume (reg season + playoffs). But depending on your criteria, you can make a solid case that he had the better career so far.

If he passes Gretzky in goal scoring, I think he's a lock for top 5 all-time.

 

[GMR]

When you're known as the greatest goal scorer of all time at 34 years old, this is nothing but over achievement IMO.

But then again, it all comes down to your expectations you had toward him

Personally, I thought Ovechkin would be done by 30 considering how physical and dynamic he was in his early 20's. Righfully so, he proved me wrong. He adapted well and became a smarter player over the years. His overall offensive production did drop alot after 2010, but guess what ? He's still collecting the Rocket trophies year after year and still netting +50 goals routinely, which make him arguably the most consistent goal scorer ever.

Before the 2017-18 season, I had Ovechkin way below Crosby in all-time ranking, but winning the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe really cemented his legacy and now I have Crosby slightly ahead of him, because I put alot of value on overall resume (reg season + playoffs). But depending on your criteria, you can make a solid case that he had the better career so far.

If he passes Gretzky in goal scoring, I think he's a lock for top 5 all-time.

He'll have a hard time replacing guys like Hull, Beliveau, Roy, Harvey on this forum. I'm pretty confident nobody will place him in the Big 4, even if he scores more goals than Gretzky.

 

[TheGuiminator]

He'll have a hard time passing Gretzky in goals too, I say he has about 10% chance to break the record.

 

[Rexor]

Based on the pre-draft reports, I was expecting Ovechkin would become a more complete, more aggressive version of Kovalchuk, or maybe a bigger and more physical Bure. Another great goal-scoring winger from Russia but I don't remember anyone predicting he would win 8 or 10 Rocket Richards. The hype wasn't as huge as with Crosby or McDavid because he wasn't playing in North America, and the internet wasn't what it is today.

 

[bobholly39]

When you're known as the greatest goal scorer of all time at 34 years old, this is nothing but over achievement IMO.

But then again, it all comes down to your expectations you had toward him

Personally, I thought Ovechkin would be done by 30 considering how physical and dynamic he was in his early 20's. Righfully so, he proved me wrong. He adapted well and became a smarter player over the years. His overall offensive production did drop alot after 2010, but guess what ? He's still collecting the Rocket trophies year after year and still netting +50 goals routinely, which make him arguably the most consistent goal scorer ever.

Before the 2017-18 season, I had Ovechkin way below Crosby in all-time ranking, but winning the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe really cemented his legacy and now I have Crosby slightly ahead of him, because I put alot of value on overall resume (reg season + playoffs). But depending on your criteria, you can make a solid case that he had the better career so far.

If he passes Gretzky in goal scoring, I think he's a lock for top 5 all-time.

Disagree strongly on the bolded. To me - you need accomplishments to move up all time, not just longevity, or milestones.

Do you consider Ovechkin #5 all time today? I assume the answer is no (it is for me). For him to be #5, he needs to add accomplishments. Smythes/Harts/Ross/Lindsay at this stage of his career would be the most valuable. Maybe more rockets. Maybe top 2-3 scoring finishes, etc. Maybe smythe-worthy playoff runs, without a smythe. "Accomplishments" as I said. If he adds enough of those - he'll be seen as #5 of all time (he won't do that, but that's what it would take).

Coming back to what you said. It's very plausible that we see Ovechkin top 894 goals without adding any of those accomplishments. He doesn't even need a single rocket more. He could only score 45 goals this year, and then go on to score 5 less in successive years and taper off by scoring 20-25 goals a year till ages 41-42. He still beats Gretzky's record - a fantastic milestones certainly worthy of celebration - but all in all it would do very little to move the needle for his ranking all-time.

 

[seventieslord]

I think it would be impossible to say that he's disappointed. Getting past round 2 just once by age 34 is a disappointment, but that's in retrospect after seeing what a great player he has been and what a great team he's had. You expect the 1st overall pick to be the best player in the draft, and he's done that.

Prior to the draft, THN had him projected as a Messier (I assume the LW version of him). That was really overselling his intangibles (as Mike Farkas said, it happens all the time) but he's at least met that expectation from an offensive standpoint.

Is he a more well-rounded Kovalchuk? Technically, yes. But that's a really, really, really low bar to clear.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I mean, I wouldn’t sort the entire league by plus-minus and try to gauge anything based on it, but it’s like hockey’s equivalent of an elevated temperature in that it might be a symptom that something is going wrong.

Like in this case, we know that Ovechkin has (in less than 50 games) already been on the ice for more ESGA than he was in five different seasons in his career (ranging between 72-82 games). Washington has a middle of the pack save percentage and had the 10th fewest GA, so while they’re not exactly a top defensive team, they’re not so bad that a good line shouldn’t be able to out score what it’s giving up.

A low QB rating could also be a symptom of something going wrong. That doesn't mean it's a good place to start evaluating QBs. We have much better ways to get the information we're looking for (like you just did with ESGA).

In regard to his defense, I do think it's noteworthy that his shots-against rate is completely normal, as is his ratio of SF/SA. That implies that the game is flowing around him in roughly the same way it always has. Why are more pucks ending up in the net? Can't really say without doing a bunch of digging, but the lack of change in his shot data tells me it's probably more to do with circumstances (Holtby has been atrocious, for starters) rather than what he's personally doing defensively. Given his surge in ES scoring, it's extremely hard to imagine he is so bad defensively as a winger that he is personally responsible for an even greater surge in ESGA... that would be unique among anything I've ever seen from a winger defensively.

 

[TheGuiminator]

Disagree strongly on the bolded. To me - you need accomplishments to move up all time, not just longevity, or milestones.

Do you consider Ovechkin #5 all time today? I assume the answer is no (it is for me). For him to be #5, he needs to add accomplishments. Smythes/Harts/Ross/Lindsay at this stage of his career would be the most valuable. Maybe more rockets. Maybe top 2-3 scoring finishes, etc. Maybe smythe-worthy playoff runs, without a smythe. "Accomplishments" as I said. If he adds enough of those - he'll be seen as #5 of all time (he won't do that, but that's what it would take).

Coming back to what you said. It's very plausible that we see Ovechkin top 894 goals without adding any of those accomplishments. He doesn't even need a single rocket more. He could only score 45 goals this year, and then go on to score 5 less in successive years and taper off by scoring 20-25 goals a year till ages 41-42. He still beats Gretzky's record - a fantastic milestones certainly worthy of celebration - but all in all it would do very little to move the needle for his ranking all-time.

Breaking a substantial all-time goal record from Gretzky is alone a HUGE deal IMO.
But one thing I forgot to mention : he would have to do it without overstaying his welcome. Assuming he's playing until he's 39-40, he'll have to play at a elite level in order to become top 5, which mean that implies probably atleast another 50 goals season and maybe one or two other Rocket trophies.

I don't have Ovechkin in my top 5, he's between top 10-15 at this very moment. But if he adds another 5-6 elite seasons and breaks the record (and Crosby doesn't add more to his legacy), there's no reason to not put him top 5.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Nobody? I would beg to differ. It can be overrated but like all other stats, it has to be viewed in context.

They have the best record in the league, however, their star player is a -9. How do you explain that? He's not playing for the Red Wings. Do he and his linemates do all their scoring on the powerplay? Are he and his linemates just poor in their own zone? Or is plus/minus a stat nobody cares about unless it helps their argument?

The problem with attempting to view plus-minus "in context" is that you end up wasting a bunch of time trying to figure out what's real and what's a false-positive.

If you want to know how many goals a player has allowed at ES, there's a stat for that. Look at his ESGA, it's right there on the stat sheet. The players who are allowing a ton of ESGA are immediately evident. If you see someone on there who also has a lot of ES points... boom, you're done.

There's no sensible reason to start with +/-, substract EN goals, substract SH goals, and then calculate ESGF-ESGA to arrive at a conclusion. In fact, the only way to gather that context is to look up the ESGA stat that you should have started with!

 

[tarheelhockey]

Disagree strongly on the bolded. To me - you need accomplishments to move up all time, not just longevity, or milestones.

Do you consider Ovechkin #5 all time today? I assume the answer is no (it is for me). For him to be #5, he needs to add accomplishments. Smythes/Harts/Ross/Lindsay at this stage of his career would be the most valuable. Maybe more rockets. Maybe top 2-3 scoring finishes, etc. Maybe smythe-worthy playoff runs, without a smythe. "Accomplishments" as I said. If he adds enough of those - he'll be seen as #5 of all time (he won't do that, but that's what it would take).

Coming back to what you said. It's very plausible that we see Ovechkin top 894 goals without adding any of those accomplishments. He doesn't even need a single rocket more. He could only score 45 goals this year, and then go on to score 5 less in successive years and taper off by scoring 20-25 goals a year till ages 41-42. He still beats Gretzky's record - a fantastic milestones certainly worthy of celebration - but all in all it would do very little to move the needle for his ranking all-time.

I don't mind being maybe the first one to throw this out there, knowing I'll probably regret it in the future.

If Ovechkin does what you just described, I for one would be hard pressed not to move him past Mario to make it a Big 5.

 

[MadLuke]

I think Ovechkin overachieve in at least 3 ways.

1) How durable he ended up to be, I think the way he threw is body around young, that many people expected Bure type of issue in is future.
2) How high is peak got
3) How long of a dominant goal scorer he is being, I think we expect more playmaker to age well than goal scorer in that regard.

Now I do not think that corrected +/- (removing late game pulled goaltender situation for example if they are ever counted) over large sample size of teammate with similar utilization is garbage.

In regard to his defense, I do think it's noteworthy that his shots-against rate is completely normal, as is his ratio of SF/SA. That implies that the game is flowing around him in roughly the same way it always has. Why are more pucks ending up in the net?

That sound like the opposite from the last time I took a look like at his stats. Peak Ovechkin had one of the best in the league shots SF/SA ratio and at the top of is team:

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

With the best Goal for ratio on is team and in the league elite.

Now is SF/SA ratio is under 50% even if he is playing on one of the league best team and :

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

He went from one of the best player on the ice at even strength in advanced stats to what look mediocre among is own team forward and look like he is not help is team to win at even strength most season's.

 

[bobholly39]

Breaking a substantial all-time goal record from Gretzky is alone a HUGE deal IMO.
But one thing I forgot to mention : he would have to do it without overstaying his welcome. Assuming he's playing until he's 39-40, he'll have to play at a elite level in order to become top 5, which mean that implies probably atleast another 50 goals season and maybe one or two other Rocket trophies.

I don't have Ovechkin in my top 5, he's between top 10-15 at this very moment. But if he adds another 5-6 elite seasons and breaks the record (and Crosby doesn't add more to his legacy), there's no reason to not put him top 5.

That's a bit more sensible at least. Yes in your example - as great as scoring 895 goals would be - being able to continue to rack up 50+ goals in his late 30s and having 5-6 more elite seasons so late in his career would be the "accomplishments" i spoke of. Those would be of significant worth to his resume, and a good reason for him to climb up rankings. Not sure enough to go all the way to #5 though.

I agree that a substantial record being broken is a huge deal. But the player Ovechkin is will have been determined long before that. What if he's 38 years old and finishes the season at 871 goals (with elite seasons into his late 30s as we just alluded to) and decides to retire? Vs - what if he plays that one more season, and scored 26 to finish at 897? To me where you rank him all-time doesn't change a whole lot with that one last season. It would have to be based mostly on everything else.

I don't mind being maybe the first one to throw this out there, knowing I'll probably regret it in the future.

If Ovechkin does what you just described, I for one would be hard pressed not to move him past Mario to make it a Big 5.

To be clear I wasn't saying Ovechkin might do all of those things. Because I agree. If Ovechkin tops 894 goals, wins 1 more hart, 1 more lindsay, 1 more smythe, 1 more ross and more rockets at ages 35+ - there might very well be an argument to bump him up majorly.

All I was trying to say is - those are some of the awards/accomplishments needed to raise him all-time significantly. So say you have him 12th all time now and he wins 1 more smythe? Maybe that's enough to move him to 9th. Wasn't insinuating he could amass all of those awards.

I've made similar claims with Crosby too. He'll never pierce the big 4 - but if he somehow wins 3 more smythes, who knows?