“Should be higher”: Ovechkin ranked 70th in top NHL players

The new season of the National Hockey League (NHL) starts only in October, and they summarize last season’s results, in addition to the rookie draft and free agent market in the League during the summer months. There are many different ratings, and Action Network journalist Chase McCallum has compiled a list of the 100 best players in the NHL. Only field players are included in the rating, not goalkeepers. Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid led that rating, with second-place MVP of the 2021/2022 season, Colorado Avalanche guard Cale Makar, and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews closing the top three.

The best of the Russian players was in the sixth place – Tampa Bay Lightning striker Nikita Kucherov, together with the team, reached the final of the Stanley Cup, but did not win the cup for the third time: the Colorado Avalanche turned out to be stronger. final series.

Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov (15th place) was also in the top 15, after which the Russians fell out of the top 30. Louis Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich was 39th, Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin was 70th, and Colorado leader Valery Nichushkin was 79th.

Ovechkin had a bumper season. Before the regular season began, many overseas experts erased the Russian hockey player, believing that his age and frequent injuries would no longer allow Alexander the Great to play at his former level. However, the striker had an excellent regular season – 77 games and 90 (50 + 40) points. This allowed Wayne Gretzky to take a big step in the pursuit of the all-time record. In the playoffs, Ovechkin and Washington were again unlucky – the team lost to the Florida Panthers in the first round and took off for the fourth time in a row at the very start of the Stanley Cup. In the first round, the Russian played six matches, in which he scored 6 (1 + 5). And in this context, his 70th place in the ranking of the best current hockey players in the League seems really strange.

The striker reacted to this rating quite calmly.

“So I deserve it. So this rating. You have to ask them,” Match TV quotes Ovechkin.

Vladimir Plushev, former coach of the Russian national team, in a comment to socialbites.ca, criticizing the compiled rating, saying that such lists do not determine the level of hockey players, and besides, Ovechkin should be much higher in it.

“You know, I never did ratings. I never thought that it determines the level and class of the player. Well, even for such a miserable grid that this journalist has laid out there, I’m pretty sure Ovechkin should be a lot higher, certainly not in the top 70. But these are probably statements of the ongoing general policy regarding Russia and Russian athletes in general,” he said.

The former general manager of the Russian national team and Dynamo Andrey Safronov spoke critically about the journalist who compiles such a rating, and also evaluated the possibility of Ovechkin to spend the next season at the same level as last season.

“I think such a specialist answered himself, putting Alexander Ovechkin in 70th place. I do not want to argue with this expert, but Sasha has already proven everything to everyone and continues to prove it. And God forbid he manages to achieve the result that the whole country dreams of and dreams of Sasha Ovechkin.

God forbid, everything goes well. Sasha and last year’s season and the season before that were successful. The main thing is that there should be fewer injuries and he knows how to score, ”Safronov said in a comment to socialbites.ca.

For Ovechkin, last season was the most productive in 13 years. He scored more points in only his first five campaigns in the world’s strongest league. However, McCallum wasn’t the only one who placed Alexander the Great lower in his rankings. The official portal of the National Hockey League has already published lists of the best in each role, and there Ovechkin did not enter the top 10 and took 11th place. And in the ranking of the Puc Empire portal, Ovi took only 34th place in the ranking of all players in the strongest league in the world. By the way, it caused a huge controversy in North America, many disagreed with such a distribution.

However, the situation is reminiscent of last year, when Ovechkin was written by some. For example, former two-meter tough guy John Scott, who played against the Russians in games for Chicago and other teams, said that the attacker’s pursuit of Gretzky no longer made sense because Ovechkin couldn’t score more than 30 goals. goals in a season. As a result, Alexander the Great was ahead of this estimate by 20 goals.

114 goals separate Ovechkin from Gretzky in the list of top goalscorers in NHL history, and after last season, the figure no longer seems insurmountable. But in second place, currently occupied by Gordie Howe, the attacker has only 21 goals left, and he may soon be able to surpass that mark if he starts the new season of the regular season in the same way as last season. .