Will Ovechkin hit 20 goals this season?

[The Hanging Jowl]

NHL coaches should have been shadowing him on the power-play 15 years ago.

I have never been able to understand why teams allowed him to constantly beat them time after time the same way every time, with a one-timer from the top of the circles on the power-play.

NHL coaches should have had a man on him at all times while he was on the power-play.

I would have taken my chances with a 4-on-3 disadvantage if it meant I designated 1 player to cover Ovechkin like a glove, rather than allow him to beat my team the exact same way every time.

I always thought this too until one day I figured it out: If you put a man on him for the PP, you're effectively turning a 5 on 4 into a 4 on 3 which is much worse.

 

[LevelingSolo]

Is he playing injured? Despite the age it's hard to see that one timer going anywhere...

 

[BB79]

Waiting for the day when I click on Capitals boxscore and see Ovie has 2 goals

That could also be Jagr sitting on a bench pondering if he'll retire or play one more season about 70 years from now

As for OV, he has 5 goals in 29 games now. That's pace for about 14 on the season if he stays healthy. Rather shocking I have to admit. At the start of the season I was figuring about twice that..and because you can't mention one without the other, Sid has 18 goals in 30 games, on pace for almost 50 goals. Also shocking.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Add another 3 more periods, 1 minutes, 41 seconds to the total without a goal.

Is he playing injured? Despite the age it's hard to see that one timer going anywhere...

no, he is not playing injured.

I always thought this too until one day I figured it out: If you put a man on him for the PP, you're effectively turning a 5 on 4 into a 4 on 3 which is much worse.

is it though? is it?

what's the score ratio between those two, the difference is not that big

 

[TaLoN]

I always thought this too until one day I figured it out: If you put a man on him for the PP, you're effectively turning a 5 on 4 into a 4 on 3 which is much worse.

But it's not a true 4 on 3 as they don't have the extra space of a true 4 on 3.

 

[MVP of West Hollywd]

Kessel in his total prime once went scoreless the first 10 games of the year and had 4 goals in first 22. I’m sure there are other examples of organic cold streaks.

 

[george14]

Kessel in his total prime once went scoreless the first 10 games of the year and had 4 goals in first 22. I’m sure there are other examples of organic cold streaks.

Not sure this a cold streak.

 

[BigHitter67]

I'm pretty damn shocked that his cold streak has continued this long. I'm still confident he hits 20 but not so sure about 30. That being said, things can change very quickly. Even with how bad he's been so far this year it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see him score 15 in his next 20 games or some other hot streak that puts him back on pace for 30-40ish. He'll still get the record but maybe not next season.

Oh for sure !
Hey , pm me .. I’ve got some great land for sale in Fla that I want you to have first dibs on

 

[YippieKaey]

LOL man, it’s unbelievable that night after night the Capitals pick up 2 points while OV gets another goose egg for goal scoring… the hilarity only intensifies when an Ovechkin fan chimes in to say that he cares more about winning than getting goals, after a career of firing more rubber at the net than any player before.

Yes because scoring 50 goals every year is bad for winning hockey games.

 

[lokomotiv15]

But it's not a true 4 on 3 as they don't have the extra space of a true 4 on 3.

Yeah, I always felt someone should just run a diamond PK against them and stick the right guy right on Ovie within a sticks length and actively take away that part of the ice and let them play 4-on-3 with 70% of the O-zone instead.

 

[avgard]

greyhere parking lot front of opponent goal in Pps full time. own team dropped of players who betterly feeding parking lot full of pucks for shoot. greyhere still playing over 20min game. greyhere trying everything cementing belief in mate so own number still a risin all this in meantime by this day team quite a vacuumed. own mate this more a realasing and how long this letted go. soon colllageteam+ol greyhere @ wsshington. oh 1000 goals pleade them me letting doing it. more time please



sir avgard hockeyprofessor

 

[Dessloch]

Yeah, I always felt someone should just run a diamond PK against them and stick the right guy right on Ovie within a sticks length and actively take away that part of the ice and let them play 4-on-3 with 70% of the O-zone instead.

Thats exactly what happened after about 1/3 of last season and Ovis scoring dropped off completely on the PP, if that would been done constantly Ovi would have been much less effective. A shame it was tried 15 years too late.

The amount of times Ovi has been allowed to onetime into an empty net is absurd, let any one else shoot instead, it could not have been worse and also forced the Caps to change their PP strategy.

But I insist that its some kind of gentlemans agreement not to do it. Jagr was shadowed by Pandolfo and NJ even 5 vs 5 and that pretty much eliminated Jagr from the game, but it was not exactly a strategy that was popular or fun for the game.

 

[deleted user]

greyhere parking lot front of opponent goal in Pps full time. own team dropped of players who betterly feeding parking lot full of pucks for shoot. greyhere still playing over 20min game. greyhere trying everything cementing belief in mate so own number still a risin all this in meantime by this day team quite a vacuumed. own mate this more a realasing and how long this letted go. soon colllageteam+ol greyhere @ wsshington. oh 1000 goals pleade them me letting doing it. more time please



sir avgard hockeyprofessor

O_O

 

[Rubi]

Ovechkin will never bust Gretzky's record.. and rightly so. Ovechkin isn't fit to carry Gretzky's jock strap.

 

[surixon]

Thats exactly what happened after about 1/3 of last season and Ovis scoring dropped off completely on the PP, if that would been done constantly Ovi would have been much less effective. A shame it was tried 15 years too late.

The amount of times Ovi has been allowed to onetime into an empty net is absurd, let any one else shoot instead, it could not have been worse and also forced the Caps to change their PP strategy.

But I insist that its some kind of gentlemans agreement not to do it. Jagr was shadowed by Pandolfo and NJ even 5 vs 5 and that pretty much eliminated Jagr from the game, but it was not exactly a strategy that was popular or fun for the game.

The Caps had enough other weapons over the years that such a strategy wouldn't have been near as effective.

 

[jcs0218]

I always thought this too until one day I figured it out: If you put a man on him for the PP, you're effectively turning a 5 on 4 into a 4 on 3 which is much worse.

I understand you put yourself at a 4-on-3.

But I would do that as a coach rather than allow Ovechkin to beat me with the exact same play every single power-play.

I would force Washington to beat me some other way and force them to design some other strategy for the power-play other than just feed Ovechkin one-timers.

 

[Dessloch]

I understand you put yourself at a 4-on-3.

But I would do that as a coach rather than allow Ovechkin to beat me with the exact same play every single power-play.

I would force Washington to beat me some other way and force them to design some other strategy for the power-play other than just feed Ovechkin one-timers.

Indeed. And it also would be better to have any other Caps player getting a primary scoring chance than Ovechkin, goaltender better chance of stopping Backstrom shooting. There was literally zero downside to try and shadow Ovechkin.

Caps PP was rocking it, the worst thing that could have happened was that they would still score but not Ovi. But it takes planning and also patience by the players to stick with it, even last season when it was done players would forget it and leave Ovi wide open!

 

[lokomotiv15]

The Caps had enough other weapons over the years that such a strategy wouldn't have been near as effective.

That's the thing, they always had Green and then Carlson as top of the PP options and Backstrom on the other half wall, rotating high. I feel like Ovechkin used to run a switch with Semin way back when as well which made Semin a RH one-time option, but also another option to walk in off the wall and shoot, but I still feel like forcing them into a cluttered 4-on-3 would have been nice to be tested, but no head coaches at the time wanted to be the guy to try it and get burned and lambasted for it.

 

[lokomotiv15]

Thats exactly what happened after about 1/3 of last season and Ovis scoring dropped off completely on the PP, if that would been done constantly Ovi would have been much less effective. A shame it was tried 15 years too late.

The amount of times Ovi has been allowed to onetime into an empty net is absurd, let any one else shoot instead, it could not have been worse and also forced the Caps to change their PP strategy.

But I insist that its some kind of gentlemans agreement not to do it. Jagr was shadowed by Pandolfo and NJ even 5 vs 5 and that pretty much eliminated Jagr from the game, but it was not exactly a strategy that was popular or fun for the game.

You've been on here since 05, so Ill assume you remember; I know they've run a 1-3-1 set-up for 5 years atleast now, do you remember what they were running in 08-12 when they had Semin and Green with OV and Backstrom on the Powerplay? I feel like it was an umbrella, but not sure.

 

[coooldude]

I feel like we are making huge assumptions about what coaches didn't try vs. "Ovie's office." Granted, I'm not a caps fan nor would I claim to be anything more than a casual fan, but the whole art of the PP setup with Ovie was manipulating the D into allowing "the shot" when they were indeed putting someone up on him constantly. I'm pretty sure a lot of teams tried to shut ovie's shot down on the PP but you still had him scoring on a net crash or getting a 1-T off when the structure fell apart, even for a moment. That's why there's so many videos of him just standing there, not at all a threat, and then all of a sudden he moves a few feet and gets the shot off and boom, goal. Historically lethal even with everyone knowing what was coming.

He only needed to score on a fraction of PPs to be extremely dangerous. He was just so good that even with teams keying on him, he still scored from his office, or from rebounds and net crashes. But it does seem like a key ingredient is missing this year, per the Athletic analysis that was posted a page or two back. Probably in addition to his age/shot accuracy.

Tl;Dr if defending him was as easy as "just put someone on him", it would have worked.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Ovechkin will never bust Gretzky's record.. and rightly so. Ovechkin isn't fit to carry Gretzky's jock strap.

I think you have some confusion as to how goals are scored in the NHL. Typically it involves a stick and a puck, not carrying another player's protective equipment.

 

[BigHitter67]

I’m afraid dude is tapped out . From 42 g to under 20 in one year ! At that age ‘it’ can disappear over night . Payton Manning in the end went from throwing darts to flutter balls in span of ~ 6 months . Hard to watch but obviously Ovi had great ride and 2nd place nothing to sneeze at

 

[Rubi]

I think you have some confusion as to how goals are scored in the NHL. Typically it involves a stick and a puck, not carrying another player's protective equipment.

Ovechkin has been sniffing Gretzky's jock strap for years. It's all he's been obsessed about these past few years. Tough to score goals with a stick and puck when his nose is buried in Gretzky's ass trying to prove he's better.

 

[coooldude]

Ovechkin has been sniffing Gretzky's jock strap for years. It's all he's been obsessed about these past few years. Tough to score goals with a stick and puck when his nose is buried in Gretzky's ass trying to prove he's better.

Weird take.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Ovechkin has been sniffing Gretzky's jock strap for years. It's all he's been obsessed about these past few years. Tough to score goals with a stick and puck when his nose is buried in Gretzky's ass trying to prove he's better.

Well, you can't say that you don't have a type.