Ovechkin will take hit should Caps falter
It’s not like this hockey story hasn’t played out just like this in the District of Columbia before.
A high-scoring all-star winger, good enough to go to the Hall of Fame one day. Impeccable, explosive regular season numbers.
But very little to show for the playoffs. Just frustration.
It played out just that way for Mike Gartner and the Washington Capitals for a decade before the decision was made to move on and the blazing fast winger was traded to the Minnesota North Stars after scoring 397 goals for the Caps.
So the Alex Ovechkin story isn’t totally unfamiliar in D.C., although so much has changed about the Washington franchise since the days Gartner was flying down the right wing in Landover, Md., and firing slapshots it seems like several hockey lifetimes ago.
Gartner didn’t get a chance to change his Washington story, although after 1,432 games and 708 goals he ended up enshrined in the Hall at Yonge and Front.
Ovechkin still has a chance to change his. It would be unfair to say he’s the sole reason why the Caps are facing elimination on Saturday against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it would be equally unfair that this has been a case where Sidney Crosby has singularly outplayed his Russian counterpart.
Instead, neither Ovechkin nor Crosby has been a difference maker in the four games played thus far. This series has been much more about the excellent netminding supplied by Pittsburgh’s Matt Murray, who’s doing a modern Ken Dryden number by arriving late in the season and stealing the show.
The Washington-Pittsburgh series has also been about suspensions — one to Washington’s Brooks Orpik, one to Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang — and about how the Penguins support players have been getting more done than those of the Capitals. Washington is getting beaten down the middle, where youngster Evgeny Kuznetsov seems to have stage fright and Mike Richards, while willing, can’t produce like he once did.
Crosby has one assist in the series. Ovechkin has one goal. But because the Pens have won three of four, Crosby’s lack of production isn’t as meaningful as Ovechkin’s.
Washington’s No. 8 is getting lots of shots, and lots of hits, and even got away with a nasty slash to Crosby’s hands in Game 4. It’s not like he has been invisible or uninvolved.
But if the Caps go down, none of that will matter. Ovechkin will attract more than his fair share of the blame, which is what happens when you make the big bucks and wear the “C.”
All that will matter is that once again, Washington won’t have made it past the second round of the Stanley Cup tournament, something the franchise hasn’t done since 1998.
This was supposed to happen very differently this spring.
GM Brian MacLellan went out of his way to add personnel like ex-Kings Justin Williams and Richards, players who understood the difference between playoff success and failure and how to help Washington get out of its cycle of playoff disappointment.
“We have all the tools,” Williams told me during the first round.
But the Caps struggled to put down the Flyers in that opening series, maybe a little more than they should have, and against the Penguins, have lost games even when they’ve outplayed and outshot the Pittsburghers.
So we may be headed for the same short-form conclusions if the Pens win the series.
Those will be that Ovechkin can’t beat Crosby, and that Ovechkin can’t lead this Caps team where it wants to go.
Doesn’t matter if it’s fair, or even true.
What that will mean to the team if it happens that way, well, who knows. Washington owner Ted Leonsis has had a long bromance with his scoring star, and it seems unlikely Leonsis would ever say he’s had enough losing with Ovechkin and it’s time to see if the Caps can win without him.
But facts are facts, and with Ovechkin, the Caps have seen no playoff success. None. They’ve changed coaches, goalies, lineups, and the result has been the same since Ovechkin entered the league in 2005. You can’t say he hasn’t played on good teams or that the organization hasn’t surrounded him with talent and experience. For an NHL superstar, this degree of playoff futility is highly unusual.
You can say Ovechkin has done his job, but one goal in a series the Caps lose, if they lose, won’t be nearly enough.
This is where great players sometimes alter the story because they can. The answer for Ovechkin this spring lies in taking over the series now. Other than goalie Braden Holtby, there’s not a player on the Washington roster capable of making the difference Ovechkin can.
His team is starved for goals. The Caps scored two goals in the final three games against the Flyers and have scored only five goals in the past three games against the Penguins.
Seven NHLers have more goals in these playoffs than Ovechkin does. In the regular season, he has consistently been the best goal-scorer in the league, but in the playoffs he consistently has not been.
Ovechkin had chances, great ones, against Murray in Game 4, but his shots found the Pittsburgh rookie goalie rather than corners or open space. Ovechkin wasn’t robbed. He missed his spots. When he doesn’t miss his spots, the Caps are the best team in hockey.
If he can’t score for his team against Pittsburgh and his team goes down again, you won’t be able to say he’s not part of the problem.
You can’t quiet the naysayers if you keep failing to do what they say you can’t do. Damien Cox is a broadcaster with Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for the Star, and his column appears here Saturdays. Follow him @DamoSpin.