He's always spent too much time in "energy-saving" mode. And there's no excuse for a guy of his power to lose like 95% of board battles. It was net positive when he scored in bunches, but now he should have more incentive to improve the rest of his game.
I think the Caps org did a poor job sort of standing up to him and making him lose some bad habits early on. At this point, he's a grown man, the only way he's really gonna change is by somehow finding motivation within himself. Possible but unlikely..
I think the problem was he didn't have a great work ethic and he had Boudreau as a coach who didn't push him enough and let him develop these bad habits.
Boudreau is a good coach in many ways but he let the players develop a lot of bad habits during his tenure. I think part of his success in Anaheim has to do with the fact Carlyle taught the players good habits and they have carried on with Boudreau.
Hindsight is 2020 but Bruce with overnight mega success... we would have called him crazy to start to try to change Ovi who had vaulted to top player in the world cherry picking and ENGing Canada in a proper frenzy.
We call it, the glory days.
Bruce tried to ride Ovi to a cup and damn if we didnt get shallacked / screwed by the ref in game 7, it may well have worked. It didn't, and we ran aground.
The main problem with Ovechkin is that he doesn't move his feet enough. Sure his shot and hands have also declined but he still would be a top player in the league if he moved his feet more.
It's been a problem forever. He doesn't move to make himself a better target for a pass and/or a better shooting position. Not sure if he's not being coached up to do it, or if he just refuses.
Look at Stamkos...perfect example of a guy who moves to make himself more effective as a shooter.
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George McPhee....The Teflon GM. 15 years of failure and counting....
I think the problem was he didn't have a great work ethic and he had Boudreau as a coach who didn't push him enough and let him develop these bad habits.
Boudreau is a good coach in many ways but he let the players develop a lot of bad habits during his tenure. I think part of his success in Anaheim has to do with the fact Carlyle taught the players good habits and they have carried on with Boudreau.
I'd bet Boudreau has also learned a lot from his time here. I bet the country club atmosphere is long gone from his coaching style. Boudreau couldn't reel it back in here...that's was a huge issue after he'd let them coast on talent for so long.
Here we have nearly everyone learning valuable lessons from their experiences yet GMGM and Ovie in particular seem to want to do the same thing over and over again.
Some of you guys haven't a clue what you are talking about.
You should actually watch Ovechkin and watch where he is standing around, then compare it to Stamkos. The difference being is Stamkos plays with 2 play making wingers instead Ovechkin plays with Hendricks, Chimera, and Laich who ****ing think because they play with Ovechkin their ****ing snipers.
Some of you guys haven't a clue what you are talking about.
You should actually watch Ovechkin and watch where he is standing around, then compare it to Stamkos. The difference being is Stamkos plays with 2 play making wingers instead Ovechkin plays with Hendricks, Chimera, and Laich who ****ing think because they play with Ovechkin their ****ing snipers.
And who were his linemates the first two years of his career when he scored 100 goals and was the league's most physically dominant forward since Lindros?
And why did his pp scoring drop by half when those linemates were Semin, Backstrom, Laich and Green?
Last edited by BrooklynCapsFan: 03-05-2013 at 07:50 AM.
Not that this matters to most hard core Cap fans, but trading Ovie or buying him out, will put the Caps back into irrelevancy. Ted will never stand for that, Ovie is going nowhere.
Buuuut if he had to get traded, my choice would be Montreal. Theirren would not stand for any bs from Ovie, and he would be an immediate fan favorite.
A fantasy would be for him to go to the Pens and play a season on Crosby's wing.
Ovechkin would be an immediate fan favorite wherever he would go even Pittsburgh if somehow hell froze over.
BB is the best coach the Caps ever had. We won a presidents trophy and 2 EC titles under him.
In our 3 glory years we lost in OT in 7 vs the Flyers (we outplayed them overall especially in the last 4 games of that series), the next year we lost in 7 to a Pens team who won the cup (we had dmen like Shamo, Juice, Schultz in our lineup playing significant minutes b/c GMGM didn't have the stones to acquire Pronger), and then we had the best Caps team ever the next year and played one of the most dominant playoff series I have ever seen that went to 7. Halak played to a legendary level that series.
You can nitpick every single coach in the league if you want. Fact is BB was and still is a great coach. He didn't have the horses on D to win in the playoffs.
Country club atmosphere my ash! He got a lot out of the guys he had.
Ovechkin would be an immediate fan favorite wherever he would go even Pittsburgh if somehow hell froze over.
BB is the best coach the Caps ever had. We won a presidents trophy and 2 EC titles under him.
In our 3 glory years we lost in OT in 7 vs the Flyers (we outplayed them overall especially in the last 4 games of that series), the next year we lost in 7 to a Pens team who won the cup (we had dmen like Shamo, Juice, Schultz in our lineup playing significant minutes b/c GMGM didn't have the stones to acquire Pronger), and then we had the best Caps team ever the next year and played one of the most dominant playoff series I have ever seen that went to 7. Halak played to a legendary level that series.
You can nitpick every single coach in the league if you want. Fact is BB was and still is a great coach. He didn't have the horses on D to win in the playoffs.
Country club atmosphere my ash! He got a lot out of the guys he had.
You just got me depressed thinking about how good we use to be.
That is a darn solid response. The Isles will still be digging themselves out of the mess Milbury left them in for many more years. And IMO as damning as Ovechkin's game falling off a cliff is as far as a reflection on Ovechkin himself it doesn't come anywhere close to what Milbury did to the Isles.
That is a darn solid response. The Isles will still be digging themselves out of the mess Milbury left them in for many more years. And IMO as damning as Ovechkin's game falling off a cliff is as far as a reflection on Ovechkin himself it doesn't come anywhere close to what Milbury did to the Isles.
Not really actually. He's just zinging the messenger rather than addressing the criticisms (I don't think he should verbally respond at all, but that's a different story).
Just because human slime Rand Paul is the one railing against domestic drone use doesn't take away from the substance of the argument.
Not really actually. He's just zinging the messenger rather than addressing the criticisms (I don't think he should verbally respond at all, but that's a different story).
Except IMO the criticism was way over the top. I'm not saying some of what he said wasn't valid but the vitriol behind it was pretty incredible IMO. And there is a lot of hypocrisy when the old school on air pundits take on Ovechkin. If you are going to take that tact it isn't just about the message anymore but now at least partly about the messenger IMO.
Isn't flamboyant, over the top criticism the shtick of guys like Milbury and Cherry? Are these guys unfairly targetting Ovechkin or do they do this to other players as well? If you think so, then maybe you can say it's over the top, but with damning video evidence and 3 years of waning play, I have a hard time saying this was over the top. More like over due.
Friggen kills me to feel this way about my favorite player.
Ovi is an easy target because he is not perfect, yet is paid like he is. The same deficiencies he has now, he had when he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Doesn't backcheck hard, doesn't battle on the boards hard enough etc.
Its ironic how the loud mouths get all the press, and they don't even have to tell the truth. Just keep saying the same thing over and over and louder, and the masses buy in. Even wars can be started on clear lies doing that. It really weeds out the low IQ'd masses
There was some truth behind what Milbury said, of course. It's too bad he wasn't that passionate about his job as a GM in which case we wouldn't have to hear him complain every time the caps play.
I doubt passion was the issue with Milbury as GM. I'd start with intelligence. And yeah Ovy has always had those dificiencies, but the half-hearted effort (that shows up now) was never a problem when he was the "baddest man on the planet"....that deserves to be discussed.
Some of that video evidence was of stuff you see all the time and would never have been used to run down a Canadian.
Blaming a guy changing way behind the play when a goalie whiffs on a completely unscreened shot from just inside the blueline and plenty of other Caps already back? A blind centering pass from behind the net that results in the puck simply coming out of the zone?
I see these kinds of things all the time in this league but Milbury acted as if they were some egregious, unheard of mistakes. The blind pass he even said 8 year olds don't do.
And I am anything but an Ovechkin defender these days.
One needs to ignore the video evidence the broadcast team clearly worked so hard to drum up to support the rant. They tried to find supporting evidence as best they could. their mistake was trying to use a one game sample when his full body of work is available.
He has weak parts of his game and Blowbury flew off the handle over them, while trying to tie it all to specific single instance plays. That's all that happened.
Can anyone come out and make a list of what Ovi's weaknesses are, without yelling? We can have a rational discussion.
Some of you guys haven't a clue what you are talking about.
You should actually watch Ovechkin and watch where he is standing around, then compare it to Stamkos. The difference being is Stamkos plays with 2 play making wingers instead Ovechkin plays with Hendricks, Chimera, and Laich who ****ing think because they play with Ovechkin their ****ing snipers.
Wow... you're actually right for once, but not for the reasons you state.
AO moves his feet... when he's got the puck... or is on his way toward the blue line, in anticipation of getting the puck.
This gives rise to a BB statement, made off-hand, without thinking, that, like a Yogi Berra statement, was right on:
"OV is great.... when he has the puck"
One aside: he'll also move his feet when he feels like checking.
Other than that, he just stands there.
We don't need him to "move his feet"... we need him to take interest in aspects of the game other than offence.
