....Just another hack journalist getting attention for himself by writing a poorly reasoned, unsupported, inflammatory piece of garbage.

Posted by Sabo from Los Angeles on 12/10/09 at 08:26 PM ET

Um, Sabo, you might want to do a little research and the “hack journalist” before you carry on ...

Posted by Teddy on 12/10/09 at 09:23 PM ET

I’m aware of his hall of fame credentials.  They don’t change the character of his work; they only prove that he is part of a fraternity.  But nice argumentum ad verecundiam…

Posted by Sabo from Los Angeles on 12/10/09 at 09:38 PM ET

The ire I feel for Kelley stems largely from the inaccuracies and fabrications he used to back up his position in his article last week. It is hard to even address his position when the underlying arguments are so infuriatingly specious.

Posted by false_cause from DC on 12/10/09 at 10:36 PM ET

forget about how the article is written.

look, i get that ovechkin “plays the game the way its meant to be played”.  hes fast and has a great shot and plays a hard game blah blah blah.  ok.  everyone knows that.  then somewhere along the line his physical play really got hyped up.  i think maybe within the last 2 and half seasons its really gotten the hype.  and we all see it, but i dont know how much great it really is. its like he took this hype and went, oh, people love this stuff, let me see how often i can do it.  but hitting doesnt factor the way goal scoring does.

theres a difference between hitting and checking, which, i guess not everyone understands the nuances of hockey lexicon. 

AO seems to hit a lot of guys, but most, not all, but a lot of his hits are off the puck (especially the ones causing injuries and the knee on knee ones), after a player has made a pass or chipped it out.  i really appreciate that he’s a goal scorer that like to play physically, but a ton of his hits are absolutely meaningless, they’re hitting just to hit.  you get credit for checks based on specific criteria, which is basically causing a turnover or taking a guy off the puck.  if he’s doing those things fine, but on gonchar and gleason specifically, neither guy had the puck, and they’d already released the pass.  this is pretty much par for an ovechkin hit. 

the other problem is, for some unknown reason, people who either don’t have a clue about hockey or are just AO mancrushers, think that physical play equals “playing in both ends”, or defensive play.  nothing could be further from the truth.  and i keep reading it and hearing how good he is on D.  which for a while i thought, hey maybe since i really dont get to see him every game in my market, maybe im missing something and he is great in his end.  until i watched the playoffs, where he’s nowhere to be found in his end.  the series against the pens…amazing.  his fast start offensively in the first two games totally overshadowed what he wasnt doing, and then was brutally exposed in the rest of the series.  and that’s not to say he has to be a selke winner, its just saying that hitting guys doesn’t equal defense. 

i hate the crosby AO argument but its gonna happen in this thread anyway.  but seriously, you can’t say anyone is wrong by saying AO is better in any offensive category except probably passing.  that’s probably the only thing where crosby gets the point, but the defensive argument…honestly, if you think AO is better defensively, you’ve either never played hockey and probably play a ton of NHL video games where defense is best described as hitting and a bunch of poke-checks.  granted, crosby is a center and has a lot more responsibility, but face it, ovechkin is doing what he should be doing…looking for offense. 

but then again, if AO can come up with a way to get people out of their seats, its good for the caps and its good for the league.  and for a league that’s forced to rely on Arena Football League gimmicks to make a buck, AO can tuck a gun in his breezers for all they care.  if the league wants to get serious about head shots, knee to knees,  hits from behind, etc, its not so much that it has to come from the refs on the ice.  if its a suspendable hit, its a suspendable hit.  if you call it for danny carcillo, you call it for ovechkin, or malkin, or datsyuk.  you can’t call it on the golden boy crosby…na just kidding.

Posted by ya ya from whoop on 12/11/09 at 03:11 AM ET

Forget the article… just answer one question—has Ovechkin completed more than a couple dirty plays in the last year? The answer is clearly, “yes” (two knees, and at least one bad hit from behind).

Ovechkin has only been suspended once, for two games, that he would have coincidentally missed anyhow due to injury. He’s been given preferential treatment by the league.

The attack on Ted Leonsis is fair, if not well explained. Leonsis posted on his blog and has made it clear that he does not want Ovechkin to change the way he plays, and has specifically had a discussion with Ovechkin to tell him not to change the way he plays. So, if Ovechkin doesn’t change AT ALL, does that mean we can expect him to knee another player or two before the end of the season, and maybe throw in a slew foot or bad boarding incident for good measure? If so, then Leonsis has publicly supported this. Which is asinine.

Leonsis is the one that should’ve chosen his words better. To tell AO not to “change” his game is the right thing to do… in the sense that he shouldn’t change the way he plays with speed, intensity, will, strength, and physicality. But the fact is that hundreds of hockey players before him were able to learn how to keep the ever-important aggression in their game, all the while learning how to change themselves to keep from hitting guys in vulnerable positions. So, if AO truly is one of the best, why is he unable to make this very minor change in his game?

Furthermore, I think it’s great Leonsis is transparent as an owner, interacts with fans, has a blog that he uses regularly to communicate with the fans, etc. But, some things are still best kept behind closed doors. Whatever advice he gave Ovechkin behind closed doors should’ve stayed there. The only thing Leonsis should say to the media or fans about that discussion is that it happened, it was positive, and it should help. But now, Leonsis will have egg on his face the next time Ovechkin blows someone’s knee out or bashes their head through plexi-glass.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 12/11/09 at 08:59 AM ET

Very, very bias. Even the way you described the hits made them seem so much worse then they are. I have a good comparison for you for Ovie….Cam Neely, Phil Espo…how about Gordie Howe?

Ovie blends skill, scoring and PHYSICAL play much like these HALL OF FAMERS.
You going to write an article about how reckless Howe was with his elbows?
Thats what I thought, this article is a bias piece of trash.

Posted by Patrick on 12/11/09 at 10:30 AM ET

A decent article, but I can’t agree with:

Letting players, even great ones like Ovechkin, cross over to the “reckless” side of the game simply enables the truly hopeless thugs like Carcillo to be even bolder while putting the greats at risk.

Though I’m not exactly infatuated with every aspect of Ovechkin’s game, I doubt that he enables simpleminded goons like Carcillo. Even if every skill player refrained from committing any misdeeds on the ice, the likes of Carcillo would still roam free and taint the image of the game. That is the case for two primary reasons:

1) The league doesn’t really want to limit the role of goons in the game. The irregular suspension policy and the haphazard stance towards fighting exemplifies that lack of coherent policy.

2) GM’s and other executives want them on the team providing that exact agitating and hazardous role. Either in response to 1) or a miscomprehension of the nature of the game, ie. antiquated reverence or revisionist approach to hockey history.

Ovechkin’s behaviour is an irrelevant piece in this story. The problem is a lot bigger than one or two reckless players.

Posted by Moq from Denmark on 12/11/09 at 10:32 AM ET

Nathan,

Every player who plays physically and hits people is going to have some hits that look dangerous and catch guys out of position.  It’s the law of averages.  Gleason and Kuleta were both awkward hits because they tried to get out of the way at the last second.  It happens to literally everyone who throws checks.  Heck, even Thornton’s hit on Regehr looked dirty…you can rest assured if it was delivered by Ovechkin, the Canadian press would have been up in arms about how dirty it was.

There’s nothing sinister or different about Ovechkin’s hits, and people calling for him to change his game are hypocrites, unless of course, they say the same thing about Mike Richards (which they don’t).

Posted by Steve on 12/11/09 at 10:36 AM ET

here’s nothing sinister or different about Ovechkin’s hits
Ovechkin’s hits are all late and irrelevant to the play. They usually take him way out of position.

they say the same thing about Mike Richards (which they don’t).
Richards is worse because he seems to plan out drilling unsuspecting guys ten seconds in advance. Look up some of his worst on yt, you’ll agree.

Posted by other steve on 12/11/09 at 07:24 PM ET