Crosby vs. Ovi for the last time this season. Tonight. 7pm.
It's a rivalry with two decades of history and discourse, and to see both of them still dominating the NHL late into their 30's is a sight to behold and cherish.
But it's time to settle the score, because it seems like some hockey fans are confused. Recency bias is a dangerous thing, and it's time to objectively remind everyone that Sidney Crosby is higher on the all-time greats list than Alex Ovechkin.
Pre-Analysis Disclaimer
Let it be abundantly clear: This is not the 12 year-old lunch table article telling you why Alex Ovechkin sucks and is a bad player. I'm above that. He's an all-time great.
But the purpose here is to prove that Sidney Crosby is objectively better. Don't get it twisted. Let's begin.
Comparing Point Breakdowns
If you're reading this article, you're in the demographic of people that know Ovechkin just broke what was thought to be an unbreakable record. Gretzky's 894 goals were surpassed by Ovi two Sundays ago, and he's now just four goals away from becoming the first ever 900-goal scorer.
Ovi is a 9-time Maurice Richard Trophy winner, awarded to the league's leading goal scorer in a season. For being the greatest pure goal scorer in history, Ovechkin did surrender the award twice to a certain Sidney Crosby, once in 2009-10 and again in 2016-17.
Crosby's 624 goals are 18th all-time, and that's considering that he missed three seasons of his prime right after he scored 51 goals in 2009-10. His pace in the following years if he wasn't struggling with concussions: 64 in 2010-11, 30 in 2011-12, and 35 in 2012-13.
Those three seasons were his age 23-25 years. There are potentially 74 goals left on the table for Crosby in his prime. Of course, those are just projections, but that puts him right around 700 career goals for a guy who is not a pure goal scorer.
Where Crosby separates himself from Ovechkin in point production is assists. Crosby's 1,061 assists are 10th all-time, whereas Ovi's 726 assists aren't even in the top 50 all-time.
A stat I want to direct your attention to is shot attempts. When you take a 30,000 foot view, you'll realize Ovechkin has over double the amount of shot attempts as Crosby since they began tracking the stat in 2007.
Ovechkin has ripped over 13,000 shots in that time frame. Crosby has taken just 6,811.
Walk with me. If you take more shots, you're more likely to score. Now, again, this isn't a knock on Ovechkin. When you're one of the best at shooting the puck, you should shoot the puck, but for Sid to have taken half the amount of shots as Ovechkin and still be among the best goal-scorers ever says a lot
Sid Makes Teammates Better, Ovi Not As Much
Consider the point discrepency for a moment. Crosby's 1,685 points in 1,351 games played have led him to 20 straight point-per-game seasons, a record also previously held by Wayne Gretzky, but that the NHL media didn't cover as much as the goal chase.
Ovechkin has 1,622 points in 1,490 games played. That's two full seasons of time Ovi has on Crosby, yet Crosby still owns the points and assists title between the two.
Now here's the crux of my argument. You only ever need yourself to score goals, but for 20 years, Sidney Crosby has been making his teammates better, something Ovechkin isn't as adept at doing.
Chris Kunitz is often considered to be Sidney Crosby's best winger. When Kunitz was acquired from the Ducks in 2009, he went from being a good player to a great player alongside Crosby, and that was coming from a Ducks team containing Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and the legendary Teemu Selanne.
Kunitz was opened up to become the best version of himself with Crosby, and no moment embodies that more than this one in 2017. "Crosby on Kunitz, a shot..."
The detail that's always struck me most about this clip is the pace of Crosby's assist. There's putting it on a tee, and then there's this. Understanding his own spacing, Crosby sets up Kunitz for the biggest Penguins goal in the 21st century.
Now compare this to Ovechkin's relationship with his favorite line-mate, Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom's calling card was assisting Ovechkin goals, which doesn't take much of anything other than "give me the puck".
When you compare Kunitz and Backstrom, you'll realize a shocking truth. They're pretty much the same player, except one is regarded as one of the greats of the 21st century, and the other is just Chris Kunitz.
It's pretty easy to rack up over 700 assists when your primary function is giving the puck to Ovechkin. For Kunitz, though, his on-ice impact was fueled by Sidney Crosby. Not only was Sid himself a great player, but he made Kunitz a perennial 25-goal scorer in his 30's.
Backstrom eclipsed 25 goals once in his career, and he was 22 years old. Kunitz didn't enter the league until he was 24.
If you'd like another case-study, look at the consistency of Patric Hornqvist's career compared to his start in Nashville.
Hornqvist was a 20-20 player on a line with Crosby in his late 20's and early 30's. In his prime with Nasvhille, he didn't enjoy the same consistency, and the Hornqvist-Crosby relationship was not always sunshines and rainbows.
Even Rickard Rakell just recently enjoyed a career year in his 30's, topping the best years he's had with the Ducks in his early 20's. When you're with Crosby, you yourself ascend to your greatest potential.
The Complete Player
I covered it yesterday how Crosby was voted the NHL's most complete player for the sixth year in a row by the players. Alex Ovechkin is nowhere to be found in those proceedings.
Does Ovechkin take faceoffs? No. Does he stick check into creating turnovers? Not as much as Crosby. Does he block shots? No. Can he protect the puck as good as Crosby? No.
Is he a better playoff performer than Crosby? Absolutely not.
While it's in less games, Crosby has just one less playoff goal than Ovechkin, and he's got 60 more playoff points than Ovechkin too.
This is manifested in the cold, hard truth that Crosby owns Ovechkin in the playoffs. In four playoff meetings, Crosby has emerged victorious three times, with all four series winners going on to win the Stanley Cup.
Even in the year Ovechkin finally got the best of Crosby, Sid was on pace to score 18 goals, three more than Ovi if they'd played the same amount of games.
The last thing to consider when seeing how Crosby is a more complete player lies in a sometimes faulty stat. Plus/Minus is often looked at unfavorably by NHL analysts, but consider that the Capitals and Penguins have almost identical records since their careers began.
So, when factoring in the equal quality of team, seeing Ovechkin's +/- at +61 compared to Crosby's +195 is staggering evidence for my claim.
You're telling me that the all-time leading goal scorer in the history of the NHL is upped by three times by the likes of a certain Sidney Crosby?
Consider that Plus/Minus does not factor in odd-man situations, so Ovechkin's all-time leading 325 power play goals are not in play here.
Five-on-five, pound for pound, when it comes down to just playing hockey, I want Sidney Crosby on my team over Alex Ovechkin 10 out of 10 times.
In the locker room, Crosby is quiet, but his leadership is undeniable. He has three Stanley Cups across two generations to show for. Ovechkin's leadership, while there may be a language barrier, isn't as readily seen.
When I choose Ovi, I get the greatest pure goal scorer in history.
But when I choose Crosby, I get the greatest, most complete player of the 21st century and four other players who are guaranteed to rise to the greatest potential.
That is what makes Sid the Kid undeniably better than the Great 8.