Most Valuable Post

Last night, the Washington Capitals defeated the Nashville Predators 4-2 to keep pace in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt. The win was crucial, considering that the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the New York Islanders despite their netminder giving up a goal on a puck shot from outside the arena.

Caps winger Alexander Ovechkin is the Most Valuable Player in the NHL. Bottom line, underlined eight times in red. Washington is in the hunt solely off the sheer will, grit and world-beating talent of the young Russian, who leads the league in (be alert):

Goals--58
Points--102
Percentage of teams goals--27.3%
Game-winning goals--10
Power play goals--21
Shots on goal--399
Even strength goals--37

You want intangibles? Factor in the historic 13-year, $124-million dollar contract (without an agent) and the infectious love not just for the game of hockey, but winning at said game. Last night's goal was an empty-net score, usually a very ho-hum matter-of-fact gimme type way to notch a point. Not with Ovechkin. He was simply trying to kill off the remaining seconds by clearing the puck. From the middle of the ice, he banked the biscuit off the boards...into the net. Ovy is not a timid superstar, content with statistics and highlight-reel moves. Nor is he on the ice with the other teams goalie out of the net just for a chance to grab the puck and fire it down for a cheap score. In the intense action leading up to that improbable score, Ovechkin was seen dropping to his knees on the ice to block shots from the Predators players as they tried desperately to tie the score up.

The argument against Ovy for MVP is the belief many hold that a player on a non-playoff bound team cannot realistically be the Most Valuable Player since the game is all about winning. The tacit implication is that this is especially true in the NHL, where half the teams make it to the postseason. Since expansion in 1967, only one league MVP has hailed from a squad that didn't get to fight for Lord Stanley: Mario Lemieux, 1987-88, of a Penguins team that fell one point short of the playoffs.

Lemieux, of course, was a superlative talent who for the first several years of his career dragged a lackluster supporting cast kicking and screaming to respectability. Ovechkin is on much the same path, and if the Caps make the playoffs, or miss by fewer than 5 points, he deserves the Hart Trophy. Evegni Malkin did a magnificent job keeping Pitt from falling apart when Sidney Crosby went down with an injury, and currently stands second to Ovechkin in overall points. That said, he has only 3 game-winning goals and takes the ice on most nights with Sidney Crosby, milquetoast poster boy for the sport of hockey. When Crosby is healthy, he's the de facto lead dog and Malkin at the point position. As of yet, Ovechkin does not have a teammate worthy of that status (Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin could, with time, develop into elite players).

The Caps are about to face the Blackhawks, channel 19 here on Antietam Cable. I'm not in the business of making predictions, so I won't.

Oh, fine. Caps win 4-1, Ovechkin with 1 goal, 1 assist. If I'm correct, I win a piece of peanut butter pie and I'll Youtube myself eating it while Swedish black metal quivers the walls around me and Snoopy, Come Home is visible on the TV behind me.

Krusty the Clown-approved post-game edit: What the hell was that?

NHL Alexander Ovechkin
Washington Capitals