Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin had just dueled in one of the great playoff series in the history of the league, with Crosby’s Penguins prevailing against Ovechkin’s Capitals after seven games of wild, supersonic hockey. Crosby lifted the Stanley Cup a few weeks later, but both teams were positioned to compete for championships for years to come.
The spring of 2009 was supposed to be the first of many titanic clashes between the sport’s anointed saviors. The NHL finally had its own “Magic vs. Bird” rivalry, an entry point for casual sports fans that could help lead hockey to new levels of exposure. It was even more remarkable considering Crosby and Ovechkin began their careers after a year-long lockout had fractured the league.
MORE: Sidney Crosby’s Top 10 career moments | Alex Ovechkin’s Top 10 career moments
It seemed so perfect. The lockout was terrible for the sport, but it caused Crosby and Ovechkin to be rookies together. They were so different, it was easy to choose sides. They landed with two franchises that already had a lot of history together.
It has not gone as hoped since that wonderful playoff series. Hockey is a sport defined by things like hot goalies, bad bounces and well, luck, something these two players have experienced often.
Crosby and Ovechkin have been brilliant, the two best players of their generation and locks to be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame despite only being at roughly the halfway point of their remarkable careers.
The Penguins and Capitals will meet again tonight, and it’s been 10 years since Crosby and Ovechkin entered the NHL with enormous expectations. The two developed into superstars, and a rivalry between the two franchises reached a new level.
They also haven’t met in the playoffs since 2009, and the magical international encounters have not materialized. Injuries, management missteps and maybe most importantly, variance, has transpired against them, and the dream of Crosby and Ovechkin leading a “new NHL” to a higher, transformed place in North American sport just hasn’t worked out.
Crumbling at the foundation
The Capitals, unfazed by the gut-wrenching home loss to the Penguins in 2009, kept climbing the next season and claimed the Presidents’ Trophy. They were upset in the first round of the playoffs by a ridiculously great performance in Games 5-7 by Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak, and were victims of a terrible no-goal call, eliminating a dramatic Ovechkin tally, that would have tied Game 7 in the third period.
Halak and the Canadiens knocked off the defending-champion Penguins, out of gas after back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final, in the next round. At that point, things appeared to still be fine for both franchises.
Crosby was on pace for a historic season in 2010-11, and the NHL’s best rivalry was on display during an incredible cinematic achievement for the league: HBO’s 24/7 series was a huge hit, with the surging Penguins and slumping Capitals providing unparalleled access.
The culmination was a night in the rain at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field, and the second flashpoint that derailed the “Crosby vs. Ovechkin” express in less than three weeks. Crosby and Capitals forward David Steckel collided near the end of the second period of the 2011 Winter Classic, and four days later he played his last NHL game for nearly 11 months because of a concussion/neck injury.
Pittsburgh’s other superstar, Evgeni Malkin, blew out a knee a month later and the 2011 postseason was a lost cause for the Penguins. Crosby returned, then left again during the following season. Once he came back for good the Penguins looked like the favorite to win the 2012 Stanley Cup, but an awful playoff series for goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury against the rival Flyers rattled the franchise.
The beginning of the end for the run-and-gun Capitals came in mid-December of 2010 while the HBO cameras were rolling. The upset by the Canadiens emboldened critics who said the Capitals did not play “the right way,” and then when they had a short stretch of epically bad shooting luck in late November/early December, the organization decided it was time to change. It was probably a short-sighted move, and the more defensively responsible but less fun version of the Capitals really wasn’t any better.
Over the next two-and-a-half seasons, the Capitals went through three coaches, Ovechkin’s offensive totals dipped and the franchise slipped further away from the championship it was building toward.
Crosby and Ovechkin have spent their entire careers in the NHL’s salary cap era, where managing contracts has become nearly as important as identifying talent. A couple of other teams, namely the Blackhawks and Kings, were able to manipulate the cap better and built deeper rosters around their superstars.
Ovechkin’s sidekick, Nicklas Backstrom, tried to play one postseason through a broken thumb. Last season, the Penguins’ defense corps was decimated by injuries just as the playoffs began. The Blackhawks and Kings have avoided crippling injuries, and won five of the past six championships.
Crosby and the Penguins have not been back to the Cup Final since 2009. Ovechkin and the Capitals have not been able to advance past the second round.
The NHL even tweaked the playoff structure, with the hope of more rivalry series but these two franchises still haven’t met for round two. It’s not the first time the NHL has just had bad luck in that department. Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky never played against each other in a playoff game.
The international stage was supposed to supplement their NHL showdowns. The two met at the IIHF World Junior Championships during the 2004-05 lockout, and that felt like an appetizer to more epic Canada-Russia confrontations.
Canada reclaimed its status as the world’s leader in the sport during Crosby’s NHL career, while the Russian program has spent far too much time in turmoil to properly support Ovechkin, Malkin and the country’s other stars. Crosby versus Ovechkin did happen at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but Canada crushed Russia in a quarterfinal contest that was over before the first intermission. The two countries did not have a rematch four years later on Ovechkin’s home turf, as Russia flopped and Canada rolled to a second straight gold medal.
Crosby and Ovechkin, as league ambassadors, tried to do their part. Ovechkin’s outsized on-ice personality should have been an incredible stroke of good luck for a sport starved of such natural charisma.
Some of Ovechkin’s persona has been whittled away, as a proud superstar grew tired of questions about his team’s postseason stumbles and ridicule of his on-ice antics. Still, Ovechkin has grown more comfortable as a team spokesman in his second language.
Crosby had been in the Canadian media spotlight for years before reaching the NHL, and he fit the “be respectful, if not insightful” stereotype. He’s become more forthcoming as he’s gotten older, and has been a worthy pitch man for the NHL and various Canadian institutions.
They’ve evolved in a weird place. Hockey’s culture seems engineered to be so team-driven that individual success or personality is often chided if not paired with group achievement.
Crosby was the best player in the world for years, and yet every time he went a couple weeks without a huge performance or his team lost a playoff series, someone wanted to re-engage a silly debate about whether or not someone had unseated him. Ovechkin has been the best goal scorer of this generation and possibly, given the offensively-challenged era he’s played in, of all time. Yet, he’s been harshly judged because a multitude of things, ranging from lack of team success to his goal celebrations to the country listed on his birth certificate.
Unrealized potential
Two kids from different backgrounds and different parts of the planet were thrust together 10 years ago and told, ‘Go be great, and if you guys could help us gain ground on baseball and basketball in the United States, that’d be great too.’
Crosby and Ovechkin might not have been rivals when they entered the league, but the tension between them grew and became real as the two teams rose to power in the NHL. When they squared off in the 2009 playoffs, the hatred between the two clubs was palpable and the hockey was electric.
Since then, the officiating standards have changed. It’s become more difficult for top players to rack up loads of points, as a result. Ovechkin has still produced 50-plus goals, but reaching the 65 he scored in 2007-08 seems almost impossible in the game’s current climate. Crosby had 120 points in 2006-07 and was on pace for more than 130 in 2010-11 before his injury, but he nearly won another scoring title with fewer than 90 last season.
The story of “Crosby vs. Ovechkin” is not complete, of course. It’s early in 20015-16, but the Capitals look like one of the best teams in the NHL. The Penguins still have the potential to be. The NHL may stop giving them a chance for Olympic glory, but a collision in the 2016 World Cup could be great.
Crosby and Ovechkin have been wonderful, inspiring, compelling players. They will likely finish their careers as not just Hall of Fame members, but two of the best in the history of the sport.
The NHL has become more popular in the United States, at least compared to where it was during the depths of the “dead puck” era that led up to the 2004-05 lockout. It has not been transformed though, like what happened to the NBA when Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson arrived.
Maybe that was an impossible ask from the start, but injuries, roster decisions, the game’s changing landscape and just plain bad luck have prevented “Crosby vs. Ovechkin” from reaching its full potential. Maybe Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid will have better fortune.
Maybe that grand plan never fully came to fruition after the spring of 2009, but that shouldn’t stop people from celebrating a decade of incredible moments and achievements from two amazing hockey players.
