Alex Ovechkin Is Enigmatic, Part 2

make sure to wear protective gloves when handling hot takesI hadn’t planned on a part two, but I had to address a few things! The original piece was a quick way to compare different eras of scoring within the NHL. Obviously Gretzky is a better all-around player (his assists alone would set the record for NHL points)! But there’s a possibility that Ovechkin is a better goal-scorer and many people thought that worth looking at after his historic milestone. There’s always the issue of comparing eras which can be complicated, but multiple people have came to the same conclusion that Ovi is scoring as well or better than Gretzky did. Straight-forward, right?

Well, not-so-fast, esteemed reader. Maybe… “Ovechkin is Bad”? IJay Palansky of the “Department of Hockey Analytics” certainly thinks so and made some comments on my piece. Let’s look at them!

Ugh, another prime example of people misunderstanding both Ovi and statistical analysis (1) Using goal share to compare Ovi & Gretz is absurd. Gretz created tons for his teammates; Ovi, lol, not so much (2)Gretzky is a significant assist machine. But the article was about directly scoring goals. And reminder that I defined “Goal Share = Player’s GPG / Seasonal GPG”, which has nothing to do with teammates.

In other words, Ovi sucks up all the goals — probably hurting teammates. Gretzky did the opposite. No doubt, Ovi scores a lot. Whether that’s good for his team on balance or not is another question entirely.It is another question entirely! Again, not the point of my article, but since we’re here, let’s look at more at IJay’s opinion that Ovechkin is hurting his team, despite being the best scorer in a decade:

More bad stats. Over the last FIVE YEARS, Ovi’s GF%RelTm 5v5 is -1.7. For a guy chewing up 14% of his team’s cap!1. “GF%RelTm 5v5”: Goals For Percentage, Relative to Teammates at Even Strength hockey. Relative to his teammates, he’s worth -1.7% goals! Oh no!

“FIVE YEARS”: Oh shoot! He’s been bad for awhile and we didn’t know it!

“14% of his team’s cap”: Capitals are overpaying for Alex Ovechkin, why didn’t anyone say so earlier!?! But this is a very specific filter, and one that doesn’t make much sense. Why 5 years, if we are referring to the contract, which goes back 7 years? Or completely avoid the Power Play, which he’s been dominant at?

So let’s take a look at this metric with different filters (>1000 min):

2010–2015 at 5v5, the original premise: -1.7% GF%RelTm
2008–2015 at 5v5, covering his entire contract: +1.7% GF%RelTm
2010–2015, all situations: **+16.9 **GF%RelTm (9th overall in the NHL)
2008–2015, all situations: *+17.8 **GF%RelTm (5th overall in the NHL) So when we add in more data, his contract seems pretty good! If that’s the stat IJay would like to use, Top 5 seems great. It’s almost as if someone who wrote the “Ovechkin shouldn’t be a MVP candidate” is cherry-picking stats to tear him down.

Exactly. He’s a power play specialist. And people are comparing him to Gretzky. Value? Sure. How much is a PP specialist who shouldn’t play 5v5 as much as a decent third liner unless his team is behind worth?IJay says “power play specialist” like it’s a bad thing here, which I just can’t understand. The entire league should be building their power play like Washington. Every defense in the NHL knows the team is going to get the puck and Oveckin is going to shoot. And yet he still scores (and this time, his 500th regular season goal).

Getting to 500 goals is why he should be compared to Gretzky. There are very few Gretzky records that might fall in my lifetime; one of them is the goal scoring record. If Ovechkin maintains this blistering pace of being a dominant goal scorer, he may break it. And given that the team is the best team in hockey right now, I’m guessing his teammates don’t mind his goal production either.

Other interesting numbers detailing his career production, from Matt Cane:

Perhaps a good reason Ovi’s numbers don’t look great. His GF%RelTM that year was -17.6, the last year of Adam Oates in Washington. A clear aberration that was easily noted by most people:

#### Post Script

One last consideration about total goal contribution: I found this from Hockey Reference. Unadjusted for era, but it’s a good start and a great list for Ovechkin & Crosby to belong to!

Rank

Player

Goals Created / Game