ARLINGTON, Va. — Alex Ovechkin set up on the left wing after practice Wednesday and fired off a series of one-timers, accepting pass after pass from teammates and zinging puck after puck at the net. Nearly all of the rapid-fire rockets found their target, with only the outline of a goaltender guarding the goal.
Maybe it should have been an outline of Sidney Crosby instead. The Washington Capitals will meet the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs beginning Thursday and much of the hockey world is inevitably styling this one as Ovechkin vs. Crosby.
Ovechkin stood at one end of the Caps’ locker room minutes after leaving the ice and a horde of reporters surrounded him. The first question: What does he think about his matchup with Crosby? Ovechkin offered a blank expression. This question is never a one-timer. It’s been asked in one form or another for what seems like forever.
Ovechkin said in his gravelly monotone that the matchup is between organizations, not individual players. The Caps, he said, will have to dictate their style of play, their physicality, their system. And he looked as bored with his answers as with the line of questioning.
“We just have to play simple,” he said, “and play our way.”
The Capitals and Penguins last met in the playoffs in 2009. Ovechkin and Crosby each scored dueling hat tricks in an epic Game 2. What does he remember of that?
“That was a long time ago, obviously,” he said. “It was a good day for hockey. It was a history moment, but now it’s gone.”
The Penguins won that series in seven games. Many believed Ovechkin and Crosby would participate in the playoffs, and challenge for the Cup, almost every year. But the Cup that the Pens won that year is the only one won by either rival star.
Ovechkin-Crosby drama is not limited to the NHL. They played against one another in the 2005 world juniors, the 2010 Olympics and the 2015 world championships. Each time, Crosby’s Canada triumphed over Ovechkin’s Russia. This series presents Ovechkin a golden opportunity to beat his nemesis on the big stage at long last. That’s the good news.
The bad: If he doesn’t, he’ll fail to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs yet again. In seven tries, Ovechkin's Capitals have never advanced past that round.
Revenge. Or regret.
“I don’t look back,” Ovechkin said. “I look forward.”
The question of Ovi vs. Sid was asked all around the Caps’ locker room Wednesday — to a variety of players in a variety of ways. Coach Barry Trotz had said a day earlier that he thinks Ovechkin vs. Crosby is a good story line for the media but that it’s disrespectful to the other players on each team.
“I don’t know about disrespectful,” Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “They’re the two superstars in the game that the league has promoted for a long time. And that’s great, that’s good for the game. But as a group, we just want to give ourselves a chance to advance to the next round.”
“There’s lot more to it than Ovi and Sid, for sure,” winger Jason Chimera said. “There’s a lot of game-changers on both teams.”
That’s true. The Caps had the NHL’s best regular-season record thanks to goalie Braden Holtby, frontrunner for the Vezina Trophy, and scorers Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov. But Ovechkin is the Caps’ leading light. His 50 goals led the league for a fourth consecutive season, earning his sixth Rocket Richard Trophy as the NHL’s goal-scoring leader.
“He wants to score a goal every time he touches the puck,” Caps winger T.J. Oshie said. “That’s just the way he is. But if he doesn’t and we end up winning, he’ll be just as happy. … You see how much he wants to win and how excited he gets when anyone scores.”
Joe Beninati, the team’s TV play-by-play announcer, says Ovechkin’s reticence about his rivalry with Crosby is a sign of maturity. Ovechkin has won all the individual accolades — the MVPs and scoring titles — and understands now that the team goal of a Stanley Cup is what matters most.
“He doesn’t want the spotlight on No. 8 (himself) or No. 87 (Crosby) and that’s part of being a leader and a captain,” Beninati told USA TODAY Sports by phone. “It makes sense for us in the media to make this Ali vs. Frazier. But hockey is a team sport.”
Still, Ovechkin and Crosby have been compared so obsessively for so long that they must care about their rivalry when they play.
“I think they both want to be the guy who makes the difference,” Oshie said. “But I think when the series is over, as long as you’re the one smiling when you’re shaking hands, I think that’s all they care about.”
Ovechkin is 30. Crosby is 28. Who knows how many playoff matchups they have left given the gap since the last one? Time to savor the history moments of the coming series.
Ovechkin’s last booming one-timer at the end of practice found the upper right-hand corner. He spun and headed off, as if he couldn’t bear to leave the ice until he’d placed the last one perfectly.
“He’s the best at scoring from there and maybe that’s why,” Oshie said. “Maybe he always wants to leave on a make — so the next one’s going to be a make when he steps back on the ice.”
