I love Ovi to death. You could probably call me easy to please, because it's rare that I hate, or even dislike a player. Particularly a great one. And no doubt about it, he's been great. And he's been great for the game, too. He's going to go down in history as no worse than a top-20 player, perhaps even top-10. My problems with Ovi are really only with the way certain people have a tendency to overrate him and his contributions. I don't hate any player, but I do hate seeing players drastically overrated or underrated, and if there are people thinking that breaking the all-time career regular season goals record suddenly makes a player better than Mario Lemieux and the big-4 becomes a big-5, then we have a problem.
First of all, the idea that we should judge a player based on the number of goals they score, and not the number of total points, is flawed. When you're looking at the most elite producers in history, there's little reason to believe that goals are worth more than assists, and no reason to believe that a goals total or ranking says more than a points total or ranking. History shows us that it doesn't take an all-time legend to lead the league in goals. Since WW2, Gaye Stewart, Bronco Horvath, Reggie Leach, Steve Shutt, Danny Gare, Blaine Stoughton, Charlie Simmer, Alexander Mogilny, Peter Bondra, Keith Tkachuk, Milan Hejduk, Rick Nash, Ilya Kovalchuk, Jonathan Cheechoo, Vincent Lecavalier, Steven Stamkos and Corey Perry have led the NHL in goals. Is a single one of them even arguably a top-200 player of all-time? In that same time, the only points leaders you could say the same about, are Roy Conacher, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin and Jamie Benn. (too early to say for Kucherov).
As it applies to Ovechkin, as great as he has been at being the last person to touch the puck before it goes in the net, he hasn't been an outstanding point producer, outside of his amazing 07-08 through 09-10 peak. Whatever way you want to look at it, his VsX, adjusted points, "goals created", point rankings, haven't been as impressive outside of those three seasons where he was probably the top player in the world. The last four seasons in which he led the league in goals (16, 18, 19 and potentially this season) have seen him post points rankings of 15th, 11th, 15th and 16th. I don't want to sound like I am downplaying this too much, for a few reasons. One, those are still very impressive points rankings in today's league. Two, it's remarkably consistent. For example, despite never being in the top-10 in points over a single 82-game stretch the past 6 seasons, he is in fact 10th in points scored over that time. That's because a random Gaudreau, Scheifele or Tavares may beat him once or twice, but over the long run he wins the race. It's very similar in principle to Crosby leading the NHL in points from 14-15 through 18-19 despite never winning a scoring title over that time. Lastly, considering his age, it's even more impressive. This season isn't complete, but using his age 31-33 seasons and comparing it to other players in history, he has the 14th most combined points at those ages (and 12th most adjusted). So there's no way around it, even if you do the right thing and consider a player's total offensive impact and not just goals scored, he has a very impressive regular season resume and is still adding to it. But just appreciate it for what it is - don't elevate him unnecessarily because more of his points are goals.
The next point revolves around statistics vs. ability. Career totals aside, Ovechkin may already be the most statistically impressive goal scorer of all-time. That's because in this section in particular, we don't pay too much attention to compiled career totals and we look at season-by-season dominance, particularly at a player's peak. And Ovechkin already has a case in that regard - after all, he's led the NHL in goals more times than anyone else ever has. There's no problem, therefore, with suggesting that he is the most statistically impressive goal scorer of all-time, but there is a major problem with suggesting he is the best of all-time. Just to cherrypick the two most obvious examples of all-time, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Both were able to lead the NHL in goals a combined eight times, seven of which instances they
also led the NHL in assists. Is Ovechkin a "better" goal scorer than them by leading the NHL in goals more times than them (and potentially eventually having more career regular season goals than them)? Or is he just the best goal scorer of this era and one who focused so heavily on shooting compared to other contemporary elite players and those of the past? Can you even imagine how many goals Gretzky or Lemieux would have scored in their peak seasons, if they made personally scoring goals priority number one, with any assists they pick up along the way purely incidental? It would be insane. Now absolutely we can all agree they would be lesser, more one-dimensional, more predictable players if they played that way, with much lower assist totals and lower point totals. But that's kinda the point. They
could score more goals but they didn't, because being a multi-faceted offensive machine that drove offense in all ways for their team was a much better use of their skills. Regardless of where Ovechkin ends up in the career goals list, or how many more times he leads the NHL playing the way he does, he will never be as good at scoring goals as those two, and arguably a few more players.
But let's assume that he actually is/was the greatest goal scorer of all-time, not only statistically but in true ability. Does that in and of itself mean that he, or any other player who fulfills that status, is guaranteed a spot in the top-5 players of all-time? No, of course not. The goal of hockey is to win games and Stanley Cups. You win games not only by scoring goals, but by creating offense many ways, and by playing in a way that helps to prevent your opponent from doing so. Ovi has only been great at one of those things for his entire career; the other two have been hit-and-miss. He's only been top-10 in assists three times in his career (when he was a much better all-around offensive force), and the way he plays today, if he scores 203 more goals he is likely to get about 140 more assists at the same time, taking him to just over 1600 points in about 1550 games. He'd be 11th all-time in points by virtue of being 1st in goals and about 58th in assists. He would not be, in anyone's mind, anywhere near any list of the best playmakers of all-time and would be, based on 10-year VsX, the 10th (or 11th, depending on McDavid) best prime offensive performer in history, and would probably be the worst defensive performer of anyone in that top-11, so what reason would he have to be ranked any higher than 11th all-time
among forwards, never mind a handful of defensemen and goalies?
Some people have scoffed in this thread, at the idea that Ovi is not that visually impressive. I'm surprised at this, really. There was a time when he was not only the best player in the league, but also the most visually impressive. When Crosby hit his real (injury-destroyed) peak, it was still fair to say at that time, "Crosby's better, but Ovechkin is more dazzling and exciting". But rather quickly since then, it's changed. He's not exciting to watch. he's not even the most exciting player on his own team. It's impossible to perfectly encapsulate the way a player plays in a single sentence, but it's true that his game is much more basic and simple than ever before. Absolutely he still has times where he puts on a bit of a show - any declining player will always show occasional flashes of what they used to be - but if we are speaking as generally as possible, Ovi is dangerous as a shooter, particularly with a one-timer, and particularly from one specific location. Go back and watch highlights from the first 5 seasons of his career and it's obvious lots has changed. He was a very fast skater, a dazzling stickhandler, could take the puck end-to-end, scored from everywhere and in a number of ways, and even if you knew exactly what he was going to do, it was no use trying to stop it. That's not the Ovechkin we see today. It shows up statistically, too. Although he has adjusted his game to play within his limitations and still find ways to score the most goals in the NHL, it has come at a cost. In his first 6 seasons, he had 0.66 assists per game (slightly more assists than goals) and was a combined +88 despite two seasons on a non-playoff team. In the 9 seasons since, he has 0.39 assists per game and is a combined -3, on a team that has been +259 over that time, whose absolute worst season has seen them post 90 points and who in fact is the NHL's 2nd best regular season team over that span. What hasn't changed is the amount of glory he receives for those goals. but hockey is a fluid game and goals aren't scored in a vaccuum. If Ovi made a point of passing more, and playing passable defense, he would be a better player than he is now, but would be receiving far less glory and attention because he'd have fewer goals.
And when I say it's come at a cost, I don't just mean based on a simple look at assists and plus/minus. Using naturalstattrick.com I broke his career up into four three-season segments and looked at all Washington forwards with at least 800 ES minutes over that time. Here's where Ovi ranked on the team in GAA/60 in those periods:
08-10: 9th/16
11-13: 10th/13
14-16: 15th/16
17-19: 14th/14 (as far behind 2nd last, as 2nd last is behind team average)
FWIW: he's also dead last this season, though not by as huge a margin as 17-19
Don't you think that if he cleaned up his defensive game and surrendered a number of goals closer to average, that it may benefit his team's results? It wouldn't benefit his goal totals, though.
Next, I want to talk about the work that goes into the production of one NHL goal. It's typically a lot. It was said earlier in this thread that someone took a look at all the goals their team scored and had scored against them, and assigned blame and credit based on how the play happened. I think that is a great idea, but if you think like that, then you clearly understand that goals for and against aren't created by just one person. It is baffling, then, that someone would watch how Ovi has scored so many of his goals the past 5 seasons and continue to deify him for his goal-scoring ability. Again, let me stress that it's impossible to perfectly encapsulate how a team and player play in one simple sentence, but so many of his goals involve four other players retrieving the puck, getting the puck down the ice, creating a play in the offensive zone, and putting a pass on Ovi's stick. He only does the last part because it's the only part of the whole process he's particularly good at anymore. Unlike his first 5 seasons, when he could do it all. Just like it's possible to get a cheap 2nd assist (or even primary assist) that you didn't do anything special to earn, it's possible to score a goal after all the other players on your team do most of the work. I think an honest accounting of every point Ovi scores, compared to other elite players of today, would demonstrate a pattern - that they have a lot more to do with the last ten seconds before the goal is scored, than he typically does nowadays. But in the absence of such accounting, it's far too easy to just give him the usual credit you'd give him for a goal scored in 2008 - which is very, very wrong, in my opinion.
Now as far as style of play is concerned, it still works and Washington is still good, right? While I am not suggesting Ovi's style of play hurts or hinders his team, the truth is probably somewhat in-between. His value as a goal-scorer is pretty obvious, but it's also pretty obvious that the team allows more goals when he's on the ice than when he's not - and by no small margin, either. I've heard it said that his value on the PP is not just as a scorer, but as a deterrent. Teams that focus on and worry too much about him will get burned by other members of Washington's powerplay. And the personnel is there to make that happen. So no matter what you do, you get burned. But if this is the case, shouldn't Washington, a generally excellent team with the greatest goal scorer of all-time both scoring goals and being a nuclear deterrent, surrounded by 4 other very good players, have an outstanding, otherworldly powerplay? But they don't. Over the past 4 seasons including the current one, they're operating at a rate of 21.8%, tied for 5th in the NHL, (and literally as close to 13th as they are to 4th):
NHL.com Stats It seems like teams are ok letting Ovi do what he will, while focusing on containing the other players, and while they're obviously surrendering some goals, they're also not getting torched, either.
Black Gold Extractor's excellent thread from last year, located here:
Shot accuracy vs volume - distinguishing goal-scorers quantitatively seems to suggest that although Washington doesn't generate any more shots than usual, they funnel more of them through a single player - Ovechkin. That's probably wise, because he's a better goal scorer than the rest of them, but the way they play (which allows him to play the way he plays) results in inflated goal totals for him (perhaps 12 per season) and fewer for them personally. The calculation showed that the net effect is that it makes the team four goals better over a full season - which is good, so more power to them. But look at where all the glory and recognition goes for that.
Speaking of Ovi's style of play, my personal opinion is that he really hasn't done anything to change or improve it in the past 5 years. They lost to Pittsburgh in 2016, again in 2017, and to Carolina in 2019, with Ovi playing the same way, and if you watch those series, it seemed like it would never work - as in, result in a stanley cup - until it did work. In 2018, everything came together and suddenly it was possible to have a player hover in one place in the offensive zone unloading bombs and win the stanley cup that way. But it almost wasn't. Imagine if one little, tiny thing had happened differently. Imagine if Columbus had won game 3 in overtime. Washington's not coming back and winning that series, one can safely assume. And the fact that he was out there in the last regular season game, playing like his life depended on scoring that 50th goal, only to bow out meekly in round one to the Columbus Freaking Blue Jackets, would have never been forgotten - not by his teammates and management, not by historians like us and certainly not by the Washington fans. It would have been an awful, awful stink on a resume that to this day would still not include a single trip to the conference finals. On that note, in some respects it's fair to expect that stink to come off of a player once they've won once - they're a winner, a champion and nothing can take that away from them. As a Leafs fan I can certainly admit I'd rather have one cup in the last 15 years even if it was surrounded by many crushing failures. But on the other hand, there have been so many blown opportunities over the years that a single cup and a single smythe-worthy run don't, to an objective observer, erase all the bad memories and disappointments. How much of that can be on him for the goals-centric style he plays, it's impossible to conclude with any certainty, but he's been the best player and face of a franchise that has consistently fallen flat on their face relative to expectations that their regular seasons have set.
I've seen it said in this thread that Ovi could potentially be a top-5 player if he somehow manages to become the all-time leading goal scorer. I'll try to stay away from repeating the rebuttals that have already been posted to that, but what I want to know is, what if Brett Hull had aged a little more gracefully in his mid-late 30s and Dave Andreychuked around for a couple post-lockout seasons and ended up with 895 goals? Would
he then be a potential top-5 player? Why/why not? He has the peak. He has the prime. He has excellent playoff scoring numbers. He played a similar style of post-prime game. At his peak he was much more of a catalyst, like Ovechkin. Do you feel that he would have to be an automatic top-5 player? Why is he so far away from that status when the only thing he didn't do to achieve it was score more goals as a 33-40 year old? You could do the same mental exercise with Mike Gartner, if you like. Or even Phil Esposito. By the way, is Ron Francis anywhere close to the 5th best player of all-time? He has the 5th-most points after all.
So while I love Ovi and I love being along for the ride as players like him chase milestones and records, I think many of us need to pump the brakes here. To recap, points tell a better story than goals. Points and goals aren't scored in a vaccuum; everything you do on the ice has a ripple effect, defensively, for example. Stats and ability are not to be conflated. Goal scoring and goal creation are not to be conflated. Overall playoff record is very suspicious and casts aspersions on whether it's been wise to play the way he has for a decade now, and career totals should not be held up as a trump card at all.
