2023-12-11 17:25:18
The start of the current regular season is the worst in Alexander Ovechkin’s career. In 25 matches, the Washington captain scored only five goals. And in the last meeting against Chicago, the Russian forward repeated his personal anti-record for the duration of the dry streak, which now stands at 10 games. In addition, he has the lowest shot conversion rate of his entire career – out of 90 shots on target (1st in the club), only 5.6% were on target.
Until recently, Caps head coach Spencer Carbery stuck to the simplest explanation for Ovechkin’s sniper failures. He focused on a large number of Ovi’s moments and argued that his captain was simply unlucky.
“It’s just that sometimes in your career, for some reason, the fire dries out for a while.” Then all of a sudden, whatever it is, something lights him up,” Carbery said earlier in the season.
Nothing helps Ovechkin
Now the specialist simply does not know how to return Alexander to his former performance. It seems the coach has tried all available options. At first, Carbury believed that all the problems came from Evgeny Kuznetsov. Statistically, the Ovechkin-Tom Wilson pairing works much more effectively when Dylan Strome is their center, rather than Kuznetsov. For some time, Carbery tried to artificially change the situation, allowing the first three with the Russian center forward to significantly replay shifts. But this was to the detriment of the entire team, and the first line with Kuznetsov spent most of the time in the defensive zone. Therefore, the coach quickly abandoned this idea and removed Kuznetsov to another top five.
Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov / Photo: © REUTERS / Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
But Ovechkin’s effectiveness did not change after the centers were reshuffled. At the same time, everyone who played with the Russian forward scored goals. His linemates Strome (11) and Wilson (9) are first and second on the team’s list of leading scorers. And starting five defenseman John Carlson rounds out the top 3 scorers for Washington.
For Carbery, this became a real headache, which the coach does not part with. He constantly talks to reporters about looking for a solution to Ovechkin’s sniper problem, but has still not found a way out of the situation.
“All I can think about is finding ways that we can help Ovi become an effective player for our team, so that we can win games and put him in an environment where he can contribute,” Carbery was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.
Washington artificially slowed down Ovechkin
Many experts believe that Ovechkin’s decline was due to age. However, there are 39 hockey players in the league, ranging in age from 35 to 40 years old. Of these, five surpassed the 10-goal mark in this period of the regular season: Evgeni Malkin (10), Anze Kopitar (10), Joe Pavelski (11), Brad Marchand (12) and Sidney Crosby (15). However, only Marchand and Crosby have more shots than the 38-year-old Ovechkin. This means that the Washington captain has big problems converting chances.
If we talk about comparisons with Wayne Gretzky, Ovechkin has always been distinguished by his stability, which he carried from season to season. For example, even at 36 years old, Ovechkin scored 50 goals in the 2021/22 season and showed 15% of his shots – the third best result in his entire career. Gretzky had 25 goals (8.7%) in the regular season at this age. Two years later, the great Canadian spent his last season in his career and scored only 9 goals (6.8%). Surprisingly, the captain of Washington, who was always considered much more stable than Gretzky, has sharply declined in this component and looks worse than the Canadian hockey player.
Wayne Gretzky and Alexander Ovechkin / Photo: © Jeff Vinnick / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
This rapid decline cannot be attributed solely to aging. If Ovechkin has any changes due to age, it is only in his mentality. For only the fifth time in 19 seasons, the Russian has fewer goals than assists. He restructured and began to play more for his partners, more often choosing a pass rather than a shot. Hence his first place in the list of Washington scorers (5+11).
But there is no one to play like Ovechkin himself. After Nicklas Backstrom, who was involved in 33.7% of the Washington captain’s goals, put his career on hold, Carbery did not find a replacement for him. But these are not the head coach’s problems: the club’s general manager left him no options. The Caps should have realized that Backstrom was only the third NHL player to undergo hip surgery, both players having retired from hockey before him.
Washington did not get rid of TJ Oshie either. The American played only 155 matches over the past three seasons due to health problems. During this regular season, he was also injured and missed six meetings. The club could have exchanged two veterans for players who would help Ovechkin reach Gretzky’s record, but Washington decided that it would be easier for the Russian to increase his sniper score with old friends.
Now Ovechkin and the Caps can only wait for the situation to change on its own. If he doesn’t change, then at this rate the Russian will score 16 goals during the full regular season. Considering that he now has 827 goals in his treasury, after the expiration of his contract with Washington, he will be another 24 goals short of Gretzky’s record. However, for now I don’t even want to think about such a development of events.
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