Alexander Ovechkin failed to score a single goal in 11 NHL games, this is his personal anti-record

Alexander Ovechkin, who, as it seemed recently, was about to get close to the leader of the NHL sniper race of all time, Wayne Gretzky, continues to stall at full speed. In the regular season match with the Philadelphia Flyers, in which his Washington Capitals lost in a shootout – 3:4, the Russian forward set a personal anti-record. This was Ovechkin’s 11th consecutive game without scoring goals.

The match between Philadelphia and Washington turned out to be extremely exciting. The way a match between two division neighbors should be, who at this particular moment have approximately the same status – teams that failed last season, but this year are showing signs of life and are desperately, through torment, with varying success, trying to prove that capable of making it to the playoffs. Washington took the lead twice in regulation time, and was overtaken twice during the final period. The second time – three minutes before the siren. As a result, Philadelphia snatched victory in a shootout.

But after this match, they discussed not only its obvious heroes – those who hit and defended the goal, but also the hockey player, who did not have a single point to his name. And the whole point is that Alexander Ovechkin set a personal anti-record in the meeting with Philadelphia. It was the 11th game in a row in which the Russian forward failed to score a single goal. The previous achievement – ten games – has stood since March 2017. But in this case, Ovechkin’s series attracted special attention for obvious reasons.

Now this is not just a breakdown of an outstanding sniper, without any doubt, the best sniper in hockey of this century. This is a breakdown of an outstanding sniper, from whom they are expected to attack a great record without the prefix “anti.” Or rather, it is even in full swing, such an attack.

So far, Wayne Gretzky remains the leader of the NHL sniper race of all time. Before the start of the championship, 72 goals separated the Russian legend from the Canadian one. The figure did not look colossal, given Ovechkin’s statistics.

But, having decreased to 67 goals at the end of autumn, the difference suddenly froze. Ovechkin still has the same five goals in 26 matches played in the championship. In fact, this is a modest figure by his standards. It is the most modest on a scale not only of the entire league, but of Washington individually. In the list of its best snipers, Ovechkin today closes the top five, and Dylan Strome, who heads the club hierarchy, already has 12 goals.

And this despite the fact that Washington coach Spencer Carbery abandoned an experiment carried out a couple of weeks ago, when he suddenly cut the playing time of his superstar to the limit. Then it returned to normal, steadily exceeding the mark of 19 minutes per match. And in the meeting with Philadelphia, Alexander Ovechkin spent 22 minutes on the ice, including constantly appearing on it in the majority. In general, the attitude towards him is the same – as a system-forming figure, with no alternative. With much less impact than before.

So it is not surprising that, for example, the magazine The Hockey News After this speech, he dedicated a whole large analytical material to Alexander Ovechkin, in which he tried to understand what was happening to him and, of course, the prospects of the pursuit of Wayne Gretzky. From it it turned out, let’s say, that with activity, if measured by the number of shots on goal (and the forward already has nearly two hundred of them in the current championship), the 38-year-old Ovechkin is basically fine. And the power of these shots is still amazing: after half of those that hit the target, the puck was rushing at a speed of about 130 km/h.

But Ovechkin made a little more mistakes than even in the previous season, and most importantly, he does not take the right chances.

In 17 cases, the Russian fired at goal in situations that in advanced statistics are designated as “high-risk” situations, in other words, 100% scoring situations. And he distinguished himself in them only once, while at the age of 37 he sent the puck into the net from such positions in every fifth case.

What was the conclusion from all this? Yes, none. The Hockey News was forced to admit that it is hardly possible to determine whether we are dealing with a fatal decline or a temporary one, arising from bad luck or poor tone in this particular period, which has nothing to do with the irretrievable loss of scoring instinct. By the way, the young partner of Alexander Ovechkin, Connor McMichael, spoke in favor of the optimistic version. He suggested that as soon as Ovechkin scored once, a new streak would begin – ten consecutive matches with goals.

Alexey Dospehov