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Will Ovechkin hit 20 goals this season?

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He can easily still hit 30 this year. It's just been a bad start to the year for all of WSH.

Even if he only gets 20~ish, I still think he'll hit the record. And I hope he does.
 
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Toby91ca said:
I doubt his PP will decrease.....probably should, but if you are a team trying to get him to the record, it won't. PP he doesn't have to skate around that much, so won't be hard to play those minutes.
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Def depends on how WSH is doing. If they are in a playoff position halfway through the season and Ovi is still shooting 7%, who knows? I do agree though.
 
Woodrow said:
Caps have the worst powerplay in the league at a dismal 5.7% :oops:
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Basically nobody on the first powerplay is a threat to score except Ovechkin, so teams have just been sitting on him and daring the Caps to beat them 4 on 3. It's been working so far.
 
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Interesting article on from a few days ago about Oveckin's lack of goal scoring.

NHL Under the Radar: Alex Ovechkin is in the midst of a serious power-play slump

Ovechkin is tied for fourth in the NHL in PP shots with 23, a solid number considering he was 10th in the league by that metric in 2022-23. His power-play shots per 60 (18.1) are also up from last season's total (16.8).
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The 38-year-old simply hasn't been able to turn his opportunities into goals. Part of that is probably luck, but his one-timer has also lost some heat. According to NHL Edge, his top shot speed this season is 96.68 mph, a significant drop from 2021-22 (101.52) and noticeably below 2022-23 (97.83).
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SniperOnTheWing said:
I was hoping Ovie would break the record just to say we saw it happen in our lifetime. Never really understood why so many people actively root against him to hit such a huge milestone.
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I personally root against the guy for his political views. I imagine there are a few more like me, especially over here in Europe. But I don't want to open this can of worms. Others are probably just Gretzky fans.
 
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Look at Ovi's TOI compared to team success the last 4 games. First 2 games (Oilers, San Jose) they load him up with 24 and 22 minutes, and scores 1 goal in total (the team, not Ovi) in two losses. Next 2 (LAK, Anaheim) they play him considerably less with 14 and 15 minutes, scores 7 goals in two wins.

I think it's been pretty clear for most of the season so far that the team's success depends on being strong defensively and getting the young brigade to chip in. Their AHL affiliate won the last Calder Cup where some of their young guys (Protas, Lapierre, McMichael) participated, so it's not like they're totally devoid of new blood.

It will be interesting to see how they'll manage the rest of the season, meaning if they go for team success or if they cater to their cult player, or perhaps some combo of both.
 
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Make no mistake, this is the worst start to Ovechkin's career.

At only 5 goals it compares to his previous worse of 7 in 12-13 and 8 in 13-14 at the 20 game mark.

He's also an incredibly streaky goal scorer shooting the worse in his career.

He's only on pace for 21 goals and he's clearly going to exceed that. I would still bet on 30 goals.

If he plays at a 50 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 43 goals. If he plays at a 40 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 35 goals.

So I would guess he'll finish somewhere around 30 35 goals.
 
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jigglysquishy said:
Make no mistake, this is the worst start to Ovechkin's career.

At only 5 goals it compares to his previous worse of 7 in 12-13 and 8 in 13-14 at the 20 game mark.

He's also an incredibly streaky goal scorer shooting the worse in his career.

He's only on pace for 21 goals and he's clearly going to exceed that. I would still bet on 30 goals.

If he plays at a 50 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 43 goals. If he plays at a 40 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 35 goals.

So I would guess he'll finish somewhere around 30 35 goals.
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I think a lot of that depends on his ice time decrease in the last 2 games and the reasoning behind it.

He is still getting a ridiculous amount of PP TOI with with just over 101 minutes of PP time but only 1 goal to show for it.

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If the 5 on 5 ice time decrease continues and the PP woes see diminished ice time at some point 30-35 goals will be tough.
 
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jigglysquishy said:
Make no mistake, this is the worst start to Ovechkin's career.

At only 5 goals it compares to his previous worse of 7 in 12-13 and 8 in 13-14 at the 20 game mark.

He's also an incredibly streaky goal scorer shooting the worse in his career.

He's only on pace for 21 goals and he's clearly going to exceed that. I would still bet on 30 goals.

If he plays at a 50 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 43 goals. If he plays at a 40 goal pace on the back 62 games he finishes with 35 goals.

So I would guess he'll finish somewhere around 30 35 goals.
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Expecting a 38-year-old to score at a 40-goal pace for 62 games when he has been scoring at a 21-goal pace for 20 is very optimistic. If anyone could do it, it is definitely Ovechkin, but it is clearly a very optmistic view.
 
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Scandale du Jour said:
Expecting a 38-year-old to score at a 40-goal pace for 62 games when he has been scoring at a 21-goal pace for 20 is very optimistic. If anyone could do it, it is definitely Ovechkin, but it is clearly a very optmistic view.
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If you adjust that down to a 30 goal pace the rest of the season it works out to 27 goals.

I think he finishes around 30.
 
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20 is going to happen. But he is definitely on a strong downward trend. His shots per game is the second lowest of his career. This coupled with some bad finishing luck (6.5% shooting) is making it seem worse than it is.

Also Ovi sitting at point #1499, will be cool to see him hit 1500 any day now. Good thing Babcock isn't his coach!
 
bigbadbruins1 said:
Pretty sure the Caps are solely focused on getting Ovi the goal scoring record, winning games comes after that.
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This is such an incredibly lazy take. He hasn't been scoring goals and the Caps are 2nd in the Metro and 8th in the league. Anybody who thinks this or that he cares more about scoring goals than winning just doesn't watch their games at all.
 
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wetcoast said:
I think a lot of that depends on his ice time decrease in the last 2 games and the reasoning behind it.
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In the Kings game the Caps got no powerplays, so considering Ovie plays the whole two minutes of the PP that alone shaves a good 6-8 minutes of potential icetime. They also had to kill a few penalties and he doesn’t PK so that’s another six minutes or so off the board.

Not sure about the Ducks game last night. He played 14:45 and 5:31 of that was on the PP so yeah not very much 5on5 time at all. Looks like there were a lot of penalties last night so maybe they were just short handed a ton?

The three games prior to that he played between 20-23 minutes so who knows. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him back over 20 mins next game depending on how the game is called.
 
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