Ovechkin : "His best game in about a month"
To continue quoting Craig Laughlin:
Alex Ovechkin is Alex Ovechkin tonight.
The 7th shot of Alex Ovechkin @13:50 in the third makes it 3:2.
Alex Ovechkin had multiple chances tonight and finally he got it! A
I like how Ovi skated a full circle and then suddenly did 180 at the blue line to set himself free. Nice move to shake a d-man. If you've never seen him doing that before on YouTube, it means the opposite team didn't either, that is very positive.
What I would add if I were Ovi (haha); I would do the same sudden break before shooting when hiding behind the d-man. Everybody knows that Ovi is going to shoot, so opposing player closes on him and tries to block his stick. If Ovi would stop suddenly, it would create an extra space, and d-man won't be able to block Ovi's wrister. Kind of like what Fedorov did in the playoffs vs. Rangers (see below).
Ovi's stats after the 1st:
Total ice time 07:09, 7 shifts, average 01:01, PP 01:40, even 05:29, 4 shots on goal, 1 missed, 1 hit, 1 takeaway
1st and 2nd:
-1, total ice time 13:33, 13 shifts, average 01:02, PP 03:26, even 10:07, 4 shots on goal, 1 missed, 1 hit, 1 takeaway
2nd:
shifts: 6
PP: 1:06
even: 4:38
shots on goal: 0
Ovi had less ice time in the 2nd, as he had zero shots on goal maybe as a result.
Final:
1 goal, total ice time 18:06, 19 shifts, average 00:57, PP 04:25, short handed 00:08, even 13:33, 7 shots on goal, 1 missed, 1 hit, 1 takeaway
3rd:
shifts: 6
PP: 00:59
even: 2:56
shots on goal: 3
In the third Ovi finally scored. He had less shifts and less icetime in the third, but probably because Caps got a 2 goal lead before the 10 minute mark in the third.
Enjoy it. Boy, it feels like it has been an eternity since Ovi scored the last time!
Bahaha...
That definitely looked like "diving call" for Neil. Why? Because even if it was an accidental spear, it was sideways, not a front thrusting spear that Danny Briere did on Ovechkin.
Update:
Here's what Neil said afterwards via Ottawa Sun:
“Obviously (the referees’) eyes weren’t on that play. I don’t see (Ovechkin) as that type of player and we played each other hard the rest of the night.”
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7 comments:
well done boy!
That "spearing" was not intentional. If Ovi wanted to deck the guy on purpose, Neil would have been carried off the ice.Neil deserves an Emmy.
He is Alex Ovechkin "the mean Russian guy of the NHL." Everything he does is with bad intentions while Crosby is the "savior of the NHL" and everything he does is with good intentions even if he intentionally hit someone with the stick. Their "rivalry" is more like a Hollywood movie or at least the NHL and the media has made it that way.
That's why I don't expect people to defend Ovi for things like this because is not like they have done it before so they are not going to start now. I believe this was not intentional because I know when Ovi gets angry he goes after the player and hits him even harder so he doesn't need to spear anyone.
check the stats - it wasn't game winning goal.
Thanks, Brouwer had it. I forgot that Send scored.
@Devi,
I agree with on this:
I know when Ovi gets angry he goes after the player and hits him even harder so he doesn't need to spear anyone
When Ovi gets mad he also goes and scores, like vs. Canadians when they broke his nose.
It is not his style to spear people. He was speared several times himself, but never did to anyone the same favor. It was totally accidental, Neil dived.
That cut to the middle move ovi does is essentially the same thing he just did in this game, except on a different part of the ice. Think of the cut to the middle as the stop on the point except that ovi doesn't dump all his speed and that the D is trying to match speed with him backwards. Most nhl players can't stop as hard as ovi can, so when he puts the brakes on at full speed, he loses the D in most situations. Trick is that he's gotta be skating at full throttle otherwise it doesn't work. I don't think his moves are as dead as everyone says they are so much as I think he isn't executing them properly ('read skating as hard as he should').
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