Ovie Missed Games, But Whose Fault Was That?

Written by CK | 11 April 2010

Yes, yes. I heard you. Alex Ovechkin played in fewer games than Sidney Crosby, Henrik Sedin and Steven Stamkos.

It's been repeated ad nauseum by Capitals fans, analysts and, well, basically those two groups specifically. Which isn't surprising. Even after earning 121 points, even after watching numerous players hit personal milestones in their careers, even after winning the first President's Trophy in team history, we aren't satisfied.

Having a winning team entitles us to more, right?

Here's one of the tweets I read today in the aftermath of the Sidney Crosby-Steven Stamkos goal-scoring race conclusion courtesy of @jdb820.

"Ovi choked. So ashamed at him..."

Scoring 50 goals in a season isn't really my definition of choking. I'd say choking is somewhere around missing easy layups and not showing up in a Game 7, but some Caps fans feel that Ovechkin fell flat and that Crosby was simply the beneficiary of playing a poor Islanders team not once, but twice to finish out the season.

Here's the reality check nobody is going to like. Alex Ovechkin missed 10 games this season due to a) suspension and b) injury. Two of those suspended games came against the Florida Panthers, a team he has scored 39 points against in his career. 18 of them goals, 21 of them assists.

I guess we're supposed to expect Crosby and Stamkos to not pad stats against bad teams becasue Ovechkin didn't get the chance to?

Alex Ovechkin lost the scoring race on March 14, when he boarded Chicago Blackhawk Brian Campbell and earned a two-game suspension. During that suspension he missed a match with the Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes, another team he's performed well against.

We can complain all we want about how Crosby had an easy schedule to end the scoring race, but at the end of the day, Ovechkin lost it for himself. Had he played in those games, any of the games he was suspended, he might have won the goals and points scoring race in a landslide.

Ovechkin didn't choke. He just took himself out of those stat-padding games Crosby and Stamkos enjoyed. Doesn't matter if you agree with the suspensions or not, that's what happened. And that's why he lost those trophies.