We’re talking an extremely small sample size here. But through four games, Capitals star left wing Alex Ovechkin is still trying to find his way. He had a nice tip-in goal after a shot by teammate Mike Green against Pittsburgh last Thursday. And Ovechkin’s 5-on-3 blast from the point went wide, but rammed off the boards and back out front to Brooks Laich for a power-play goal in the season opener vs. Carolina on Oct. 8. One goal. One assist. A -2 rating. That’s it. That’s the list.
Hard to be too critical yet, though. This is a player, after all, who registered two goals in his first 11 games of the 2008-09 season and ended up with 56 and a Hart Trophy. But any time a player plummets offensively – even if it was to “just” 32 goals in 2010-11 – he will be watched like a hawk.
“Yeah – nobody’s worried about him,” Caps teammate Mike Knuble said. “He shoots the puck hard in practice, he works hard on scoring every day. He’s the last guy in the world that’s going to be down on himself. He’ll end up with his 40-plus by the end of the year. Goals are a little bit hard to come by minus the one game [against Tampa Bay on Oct. 10].”
So far, Ovechkin’s minutes have been controlled. He played a season-high 21:47 against Tampa Bay and a season-low 18:10 against Ottawa. He has taken 15 shots. That would be well off the pace (about 308) to match even last year’s career-low of 367 shots. Ovechkin has also had 10 attempts blocked and missed the net another nine times. Anyone worried? Not really. Goals are just harder to come by now.
Ovechkin won’t say this and his teammates wouldn’t, either – but maybe his days of 55-to-65 goals in one season are over. That’s not unheard of in the NHL even at age 26. And it’s not like 40-to-50 goals is an unacceptable total. All Ovechkin can do is push through and continue to make adjustments after coming into the season in better shape. He was the first player on the ice at Monday’s practice at Kettler Iceplex, dumping a bucket of pucks about 20 feet in front of a goal and slamming home one shot after another. He did that for about five minutes until too many teammates had joined him and practice was about to start.
Anecdotally, too, it does seem like Ovechkin is crashing the net more this season – the tip-in of Green’s shot a good example. And there are other things he can do to avoid a slow start.
“Teams make [Ovechkin] work. They make him work for everything he gets,” Knuble said. “He’s got to work for every inch on the ice. He needs to start by hitting the net more, probably. He’s missing the net. But he’s putting good shots on goal, shoots the puck hard enough, gets rid of it quick enough that it’s going to start going in.”
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