There isn't a more exciting player in the NHL than Alex Ovechkin. His game was made for the highlight reels. But, I have to say, his style of play really isn't suited for dominating a playoff series. His record in do-or-die, winner-take-all games is now a rather pathetic 1-4 since 2008 (three Game 7 losses, Olympic medal round loss) after his Capitals were stunned by the Canadiens, 2-1, tonight. With that, the best team in the NHL this regular season is out in the first round of the playoffs after blowing a 3-1 series lead.
Really, it isn't all his fault. When was the last time a team whose best player was a winger won the Cup? Has it ever happened? Maybe the Canadiens with Guy Lafleur in the late 1970s (although their best player may have been Ken Dryden or Larry Robinson). Wingers can't dominate a series the way centers can because of where they play on the ice and their lesser responsibilities. Thus, it's virtually impossible for a great winger to have as great an impact as a great center.
I hate to compare Ovechkin to Sidney Crosby because their jobs are so different but if these two are considered the two best, it has to be said that Crosby does the little things far better than Ovechkin. He's a better back-checker. He's a faceoff ace. He's better down low around the corners. No, he doesn't have Ovechkin's shot and he doesn't lay people out with open-ice shots but he does all the little things it takes to win, all while scoring over 100 points every season.
Crosby carried the Penguins over the Senators not only with his offense but with his grit, faceoffs, defensive responsibility and all-around play. When the Canadiens devoted so much attention to Ovechkin to take away his goal-scoring ability in the final three games of the series, the Great Eight became rather useless. Crosby can contribute in fifty different ways. Ovechkin can contribute in about five ways. It's why Crosby has been to the Final two year in a row, won the Stanley Cup and won an Olympic Gold Medal in which he scored the winning goal in overtime, and why Ovechkin's teams have failed miserably in big games. Unfortunately, Ovechkin can't make a difference if an opponent can slow down his offense. Crosby can and does.
That being said, I don't want to blame Ovechkin for the Capitals losing. The real culprits were the Capitals running into an incredibly hot goaltender and their own horrible defensive play, most notably by Mike Green. Jaroslav Halak stopped 131 of 134 shots in the final three games of the series. Green was directly responsible for both Canadiens goals in Game 7, one because of a penalty and the other because of a misplay. He almost gave away another goal but his goaltender, Semyon Varlamov, bailed him out.
Green is a terrific offensive player but he really is the Sandis Ozolinsh of his generation, a supremely gifted talent in the offensive end but a complete mess in his own end. This is the second consecutive spring in which Green has been a complete albatross in his own end. It's one reason why I cannot possibly put him in the same class as Nicklas Lidstrom, Drew Doughty, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber, Chris Pronger, Brent Seabrook, or even someone like Dan Boyle, who is only so-so in his own end. Green's defensive failures have been greatly responsible for the Capitals losing their last two playoff series.
It also should be pointed out that Alexander Semin was a zero in this series for the Capitals, as was Tomas Fleishmann before he was scratched for the final game. As exciting as the Capitals are, I cannot help but feel that they have a lot of players that don't want to pay the price it takes to win the battles necessary to win in the playoffs. When the game is wide open, they can and probably will beat anyone. When it's tight checking, they have a lot of players who are severely lacking.
Washington needs to improve their grit factor considerably this offseason and I don't mean just improving their checking lines (actually, their checking lines were great in this series). They need to find those gritty scorers, guys who score in the high traffic areas. They also need to find a puck-moving defenseman who is more responsible in his own end than what they have.
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