Alex Ovechkin and Those Around Him

From the moment Francis opened his mouth and let that garbage come out, I stopped listening to Hot Stove. Does he make stuff up just so we can get riled up, or is he really that stupid? Does he report from his parents’ basement?

/Cox’d

Also, does Jeff Halpern figure into it at all? I used him, Zubrus and Clark as players who all collected nice contracts after playing with Ovechkin in last night’s hockey thread. Or too small a sample?

Saw the hotstove as it rolled and my wife and I looked at each other and we both remarked that the blogosphere would probably have a field day with this one. I’d recommend to everyone to actually watch the clip before firing missles, just to make sure you have full context.

What the head scratcher was for me is that the discussion went from Kovalchukgate into a Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate. I found myself saying out loud “really?” as the discussion went that way, because no discussion about Ovie is complete without the whole comparison bit and “good canadian boy” type talk. The thing to keep in mind is that we are an easy team to hate, and battle lines on this whole caps/pens sid/ovie canadian/russian thing have been drawn a loooong time ago. There are a ton of media outlets out there that love us, and that there are equally the same number that hate us. Regardless of how the Caps or the team’s individual players perform, some folks will likely always have it in for the team or individuals.

Blowhards get what they want when they stir the pot and people give them web hits or pay them lip service. Shoot, D.Cox gets paid to grind his axes publicly, and Milbury or any other analyst in that court does the same. Best way to shut them up is to take care of business.

Seeing Mike Milbury tell Francis that he was wrong was bizarre. A far as what else Milbury said as soon as I read that GQ article, I knew that it would continue to be brought up to project Ovechkin in a bad light. However, Ovechkin is the one who choose to act in the manner that he did in front of the GQ writer so if that did not project a great image then that is how it goes.

First off, it’s not so much an “ability” as it is a playing style; that being said, Crosby seems to be moving further and further away from using his teammates and Ovechkin has grown into his role as a team player. Who knows, maybe getting the “C” had something to do with it for Ovechkin, though I think the bigger thing is that he has recognized that his teammates have gotten better around him.

Does a player make those around him better? Statistically yes. It can easily be argued that those players were always that good but it just didn’t show up. You could also easily argue that Crosby contributes more to his teammates than Ovechkin does. Which is probably true being that Crosby has chronically had worse linemates and is a playmaker. Ovechkin has had elite linemates his entire career. But short sighted comments are short sighted.

Ochocinco and TO deserve each other. They are both loud mouth, show boating, egotistical arses who catch balls from great quarterbacks. Ovechkin isn’t nearly so arrogant as to change his name to his number or alter ego. If anything, like the WaPo was alluding to, is that Ovechkin is more similar to Tom Brady if Crosby is the Peyton Manning. Brady is a great quaterback but does a lot of media stuff and isn’t nearly as clean cut and “disciplined” as Manning. Both are game changers and the best in the NFL at their position.

Also I severely doubt Crosby went back home to practice scoring goals by shooting into the dryer he did as a kid. If anything I’d say that’s why he was so poor at scoring before. I mean shooting pucks into a 2ft in diameter whole from 10ft out, as opposed to Ovechkin who did shooting drills similar to the skills competition and wasn’t allowed to quit until he hit all his targets. Even so, different players, different training, different positions. The media makes it out like Ovechkin just shows up and never practices or trains. You certainly don’t get to 240 lbs of mostly muscle going out to bars and eating twinkies in the off season. I’d most certainly know that!

Alas, its all rather pointless to discuss. The folks up in Canada are talking heads who are paid to make outrageous comments and make caricature’s of their own opinions.

The best way for Alex to silence his detractors is to win a cup. As much as the fact haunts me every day, and is brought to my attention by Pens fans, Crosby has helped his team hoist the sacred chalice, while Ovy has not. Once he does that, he’ll put to rest all this nonsense, but probably not before.

Between Hotstove and the #NFLasNHL comparison of Ovechkin to Marino (ie, great talent who can’t win it all) propagated on Twitter last night, I’m not surprised there was enough grist for the Sunday content mill. Kudos for bringing the truth hammer early.

Regarding the former, I immediately wondered what Francis’ definition of ‘better’ is. Has Chris Kunitz really become a better player along side the Kid? In the two seasons (06-07 and 07-08) prior to his arrival in PIT, Kunitz scored 110 points in 162 games, to the tune of .68 PPG. He did have a torrid 20 game stretch where he scored 18 points (.90 PPG) upon being traded from ANA to PIT at the 08-09 deadline, but a 17.9% shooting percentage leads me to believe that pace was an anomaly. Last season, Kunitz went for 32 points in 50 games, for .64 PPG, and so far this year, his 13 points in 25 games comes in at .52 PPG. He scores at a rate of .62 PPG for his career. Has his pairing with Sid really made Kunitz better?

Nearly two years ago, Michael Farber of SI remarked that Sid “has burned through linemates the way Spinal Tap went through drummers.” Would this be the case if he really did elevate his wingmen’s games? None of this is to imply that Sid is not a great player himself—he most certainly is. But it sure looks like the Cup win—clearly a team effort—is the sole basis of Francis’ wafer thin argument.

We can argue until we’re blue in the face about whether Milbury is right, wrong, or just a plain idiot but he ONLY way that Ovechkin is going to shed these labels is to be on a team that wins the Stanley Cup.

Why are the Capitals an “easy team to hate”, btw?

I just wish they would win the damn Cup already and shut the pundits up for once.

JP – thanks for focusing on the one absurd point from last night and for noticing that Milbury did not go along with Francis’ absurdity. Neither, by the way, did LeBrun or McLean.

I looked high and low last night for a bio of Francis to understand a bit about where he came from, but couldn’t find anything, not even a Wikipedia entry. Does anyone know who he is other than a talking head and writer for the Calgary Sun?

The crux of the argument may be this – with Backstrom set as Ovie’s center and an elite player by any measurement, Ovie doesn’t have the same opportunity to make others better around him, whatever the stats say. Add Semin to the mix and the argument is even dumber. I mean – how do you really make Semin and Backstrom better?

I saw this last night and just remembered. Worth a chuckle.

I hope to speak for smarter Penguins fans that most of us do not think OV lacks the ability to make those around him better.