 |
| The source of his strength is the neckbeard. |
 |
| There's only a handful of people who can get away with this nonsense |
Between now and Saturday night, I'm not sure I'll be thinking of a whole lot more than the puck dropping at 730 pm at MSG. Not going to say a whole lot here, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Holtby's been great when he's had to, but more importantly has received huge support in front of him. And to the chagrin of the Ovechkin critics, the Russian Machine came to play this series.
A few notes on Ovechkin. There seem to be (3) types of fans - those who love Ovechkin, those who hate Ovechkin, and those who hate playing against him but would love to have him on their team. Kind of Jeter-esque in that way. So, courtesy of the DC Sports Bog, some interesting stats:
“Ovechkin’s 0.60 playoff goals per game is better than Gretzky, Bure, Kurri, Hull (both), etc,” James Mirtle noted. “Only Lemieux, Bossy, Richard and Neely higher.”
“Alex Ovechkin becomes first player to net 30 goals in first 50 career playoff games since Avs Joe Sakic did it in 1997,” Ben Raby wrote.
“This is Ovechkin’s 12th career playoff game when facing elimination. He has 7 goals, 6 assists for 13 points in those games,” @RandyNumbers tweeted.
I'm not saying he's the same player he was 3-4 years ago, and I don't even think he was one of the top five players in the league during the regular season (he was probably borderline top 10). But he brings it in the playoffs, and although some of the blame for previous Caps playoff performances should be placed on his shoulders (comes with the territory of being best player on the team), he's probably received significantly more than necessary.
Lets Go Caps.
how much credit does Cheap Shot Hunter get or limiting Ovechkins playing time?
ReplyDeletei've heard hunter get heavily criticized that he needs to "play his best players", but i've also heard him praised for limiting his minutes in order to get more out of him..... the way ovechkins playing, its hard to argue with how hunters coaching...
Well, there are various schools of thought on this right now. I'm of the opinion that the 13-14 minutes Ovie got in Game 2 was waaay too low. If Hunter wanted to send Ovie a message, I think it was received (and I guess you have to give Hunter credit for that). Now (I think) Ovie is seeing between 18-22 minutes a game, which is fine with this current system Hunter is using. Bottom line, if the Caps were losing or were already eliminated Hunter would probably not be coming back. And the backlash of "how do you bench your best player?" would be pretty high. After this run, I have to think he's behind the bench next season. But George McPhee is much smarter than I am so I guess we'll see.
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to think that Ovie, who is not the sharpest tool in the shed and is really a meathead at heart (god bless him), really needed a coach who was a badass former player to put him in check. And no matter what your opinion of Hunter is, he is not the kind of guy you screw with. I can't imagine Ovie ever had the respect for Boudreau he has for Hunter. The "fat f*ck" comment was the icing on the cake for Ovie and Boudreau...if he said that to Hunter, Hunter would probably go Happy Gilmore and try to stab Ovie with his own skate.