There was recently an article over at The Manic Ranger Fan that tore into Sidney Crosby and proclaimed Alex Ovechkin the hands-down choice as the NHL's best player. I don't quite agree.
To argue that Alex Ovechkin is unquestionably the better hockey player doesn't really make a lot of sense. They offer different things.
[Via The Baltimore Sun]
Alex is a far more exciting player most of the time and will always have more natural goal-scoring ability than Sidney.
Though, if you think Crosby lacks in exciting moments, this highlight I saw in person might change some opinions:
It certainly proves that Ovie’s not the only one who can create some magic.
Crosby's firy personality rarely shines through in front of the cameras and instead comes out in four- and five-letter bursts of expletives. With his more extroverted personality, A.O. will always be the more entertaining of the two off the ice as his TV spots and summer of speeding past the White House make clear:
Ovie Commercial:
Interview Picked up by Puck Daddy:
Who in your team is known as crazy driver? About whom are the legends made?
The legends are made about Semin and me! I normally try to drive carefully. Only once, because I was late to the team's training, I accelerated to 165 miles per hour. You can convert yourself how much it is in kilometers. And the flying ended, the police stopped me near White House.
Did you get a fine?
I've exceeded the speed limit in more than three times, for that in the United States a fine is not enough. They take your license and put you in jail. But I was lucky. The police recognized me and let me go. I gave them 10 tickets that I had with me to the Washington Capitals game.
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As important as hilarity is to me, though, the fact remains that Alex will never be as complete a player as No.87.
Crosby plays solid defense and can kill penalties.
He is one of the top three in the league at making artful setups for teammates. Only Joe Thornton and Marian Hossa rival his passing ability.
The majority of Ovechkin's assists are pucks that rebound off the goalie's pillows.
Sid is incredibly strong on the puck. That part of his game is very underrated. Ovechkin wins in the physicality department by a hefty margin, but Crosby's no pushover. Literally. Watch defensemen try to knock him off the puck. It doesn't happen too often.
If we want to compare the stats, Seth at Empty Netters already put them together. One of his readers created a comparison between the two and Evgeni Malkin.
He couldn't come to a conclusion, but he did say if you want a certain type of a player choose Crosby, if you want another, choose Ovechkin and if you want a player with elements of both take Malkin. I'd agree. They're the top three players, but the order you'd arrange them depends on your team's needs.
He also extrapolated their stats into full-season averages:
If you want to go on simple production, Crosby wins out on a points-per-game basis. And I also feel he wins out in most of the areas I mentioned above. Alex dominates on goals scored, but if he’s not scoring goals, what is he doing? Crosby on the other hand scores, sets up his teammates to do the same and is a solid, two-way player.
Don't get me wrong, I love them both. They both truly deserve the label of “great.” That word gets tossed around too much, but for these guys it’s accurate.
If the Rangers won that fateful lottery and took Crosby first overall, there'd be a lot of Rangers fans singing a different tune.
There's no way to say definitively that one guy's better than the other, but I know which of the two I'd want on my team through a Cup run. There's no question of that.
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