Is the championship window closing on Alex Ovechkin?
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On an unseasonably warm night last January, Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals winger, prolific scorer, hockey Rorschach test, Canadian media whipping boy, the most dangerous Russian living in America since Philip and Elizabeth Jennings and the only love our nation’s capital and Moscow have in common, joyously answered questions during an on-ice post-game interview.
Earlier that evening, he scored the 500th and 501st goals of his spectacular career against the Senators, becoming the 43rd player in the history of the league, but only the first Russian-born NHLer to reach that milestone.
Watching him answer with his trademark gap-toothed smile brought me back to his rookie season when I spoke with him a few days before his first NHL game. On an AOL Sports podcast, Ovechkin struggled mightily with his English as he answered my question about which NHL defenseman he thought would present the greatest challenge (Montreal’s Andrei Markov). He soldiered on through the interview, answering as best he could and embracing the challenge with the same bulldog attitude that’s become one of the trademarks of his game.
The young and promising Ovechkin of that interview has given way to a gregarious, albeit battle-scarred Ovi, his trophy case filled to the point of near bursting, a tangible manifestation of his glory to date. There’s the 2005 Calder Trophy from his rookie season; three Hart Trophies as league MVP; another three trophies bestowed by his peers naming him the best in the league and six Rocket Richard trophies as the NHL’s top scorer.
While most players would kill for one signature moment, the Ovechkin highlight reel seems endless. There was “the goal,” a tumbling backhand shot that left Wayne Gretzky astonished as he watched from the opposing bench; the night when the Habs broke his nose, split his lip and left a cut under his left eye, yet still couldn’t stop him from scoring four goals including the overtime winner; and then the epic clash with Sidney Crosby in the 2009 playoffs, albeit one that ended with a whimper instead of a bang.
The two milestone goals from his record-setting night were classic Ovechkin. His 500th came on the power play, and from his left wing faceoff circle office. Whether it’s a one-timed slapper or that night’s rocket of a wrist shot, I have my doubts that either Ken Dryden nor Dominick Hasek in their prime could have kept an Ovi shot from the back of the net. The script is familiar to anyone who has ever seen him at work: the defense collapses toward the puck carrier on the right wing, and somehow, yet inevitably, they seem to forget Ovechkin is alone on the weak side and poised to pounce. He could keep ripping shots home from there on the power play well past age 40 if he were so inclined.
Ovechkin’s 501st goal was a direct rebuke to his critics who have crowed since Washington’s 2010 playoff loss to Montreal that the league had figured out his patented move: streaking alone over the red line along the left wing boards before making an ankle-breaking cut into the slot and putting the puck in the net, like he did on that night against Norris Trophy-winning defenseman, Erik Karlsson.
Despite all this, he’ll never be able to dog comparisons to his nemesis in Pittsburgh until he wins more — a Stanley Cup, an Olympic gold medal, anything of substance. Since this year’s postseason failure against Pittsburgh, the sense of desperation in Washington has ballooned. Ovechkin is still great, but as he closes in on his 31st birthday, how much time does he really have left to win a big one?
It’s one thing to have your heart broken. It’s another entirely to have it ripped from your chest every Spring, still beating, like the victim in a homicidal Aztec sacrifice. How much more can Ovechkin and Washington hockey fans endure?
If it all seems unfair, that’s because it is. What-have-you-done-for-me-lately culture makes it hard to remember just how desperate the state of hockey was here before Ovechkin arrived — and just how hopeless it might be today had he decamped somewhere else.
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