In every professional sport, there is a vast amount of debate among fans, media and experts on who the best players are. Last week, a popular hockey magazine, “The Hockey News,” did their version of this with their annual piece that highlights the top 50 players in the National Hockey League.
When looking at the top 10 players on this list, there is one key name missing: Alexander Ovechkin. Ovechkin finds himself ranked 11th on The Hockey News’ top 50.
While it is impossible to create a top 10 that everyone will agree on, it is still pretty tough to not include Ovechkin on that list. For starters, Ovechkin has led the NHL in goals the last four years, scoring 50 or more goals in three of those seasons. He has even cleaned up his defensive game immensely, something that he has taken a lot of criticism for throughout his entire career. So when looking at the fact that Ovechkin is far and away the best goal scorer in NHL and is no longer a defensive liability, how did he not crack the top 10?
Players like Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane topped the list, but the best place to look, is at the two players ranked above Ovechkin, Pavelski and McDavid. While there is no question that both of these guys are great players, they should not be slotted ahead of Ovechkin. Joe Pavelski has always been a solid player who consistently puts up 30 or more goals a year, but Ovechkin has scored over 30 goals in a shortened season and has reached the 50 goal plateau seven times in his career.
Pavelski’s stock in this list has too much weight placed on his playoff performance this past spring. Although it is very impressive to have such great production during a long playoff run, fans and analysts put way too much emphasis on this as it is a much smaller sample size than a full 82 game season. What happens over a two-month span should not wash away what occurred the seven months prior, which is what makes Pavelski’s ranking above Ovechkin out of place.
Small sample sizes also have to do with Connor McDavid’s ninth spot on this list. McDavid had 48 points in 45 games in his rookie season, which is very impressive, but 45 games worth of work is not enough to rank him as the ninth best player in the NHL. I have no question that McDavid will be a top 10 player in this league, probably as early as 2017, but it is way too early to rank him above a guy who repeatedly has 50 goal seasons with no apparent signs of slowing down just yet.
mackreec15@bonaventure.edu
