Crosby’s personality sucks, he is just a walking book of hockey cliches, Ovechkin is not afraid to tell exactly what he’s feeling. Crosby is boring and tries to be polite. He is also classless and a coward, evident by when he punched an Atlanta player in the balls when he already had another player on top of him, and then Baby Cindy jumped another guy off a faceoff when he didnt expect.

Posted by Chris from San Jose on 01/10/09 at 01:27 AM ET

Yeah I agree Chris. Why can’t Sid has the kind of classy personality that Ovie does.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 01/10/09 at 01:30 AM ET

What does being hammered have to due with Ovie’s character? I’m sure Barack Obama has was drunk or stoned during his youth. Sid the Kid probably isn’t a saint either. At least attempt to question my arguement with facts or you own opinion instead of showing a stupid picture, you found off Google images.

Posted by Chris from San Jose on 01/10/09 at 03:16 AM ET

The winner of this rivalry as best player in the NHL is Evgeni Malkin.  The man who is running away with the scoring race this season.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 01/10/09 at 03:21 AM ET

Huh.

In the 3 1/2 years they’ve been in the league, Crosby and Ovechkin have developed a Magic Johnson-Larry Bird sort of rivalry.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Magic - Bird rivalry an offshoot of the two teams playing each other in the playoffs so often?  Until they go against each other in a playoff series or two, any “rivalry” is more manufactured fluff than anything.

I know I don’t think of them much as rivals at all.  When the teams play each other the Malkin-Ovechkin matchup seems more like a rivalry than Ovechkin-Crosby does.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 01/10/09 at 05:48 AM ET

We’re in a league where the Selke doesn’t go to someone unless they have 20 goals… so needless to say I’m unsurprised that people just look at point totals to figure out who they are supposed to say is the best player in the league.

A few things to consider:

First, the East is a joke compared to the West.  I’m not at all impressed with the stats that guys ring up in the East because they are doing it against teams who, by and large, suck.  The West is something like 82-45-15 against the East so far this year, which trends out to around a 102 point season were the West an NHL team.  So, they dominate them and have for really the past three or four seasons.

Second, when a forward is playing 5+ minutes a night on the PP… yeesh.  No kidding he has a ton of points.

Third, when you’ve got 39 ES points and you’re only a +15… you aren’t solid defensively.  Sorry.  Yes, I know Malkin plays a whole 1 minute a night on the PK, but the guy is a mediocre defensive player… at best.  Guys with 10 fewer ES points have the same +/-.  Granted, Crosby’s much the same way… but that sort of illustrates the point snce he’s no great shakes defensively either.

Unfortunately defense, strength of competition and IT is not brought into the debate in these situations.  People just click on the ‘Points’ column and use that to determine their ballots.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 01/10/09 at 10:47 AM ET

The winner of this rivalry as best player in the NHL is Evgeni Malkin.  The man who is running away with the scoring race this season.

The man is right, Geno could be only the 4th player to ever record over 100 assists. And they say Sid is supposed to be the setup man.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 01/10/09 at 10:49 AM ET

I suppose you’ve never watched Malkin play much huh. To say he’s not good at defense is ridiculous.

Lets say a player can play 25 minutes a game. If you’re a coach, and don’t really have any scoring threats except that guy, would you really want to waste some of that time playing him on the PK?
Its not malkin’s fault he only plays a minute or 2 of PK every game, but those 1-2 minutes are a beastly display of just how good he is.
And lets see here, your precious wings play the BJ’s, the Preds, and the Blues 6 times each in a season.
The Pens play the Rags and King Henrik, the Devils and Broduer, and the Flyers 6 times each.

Please tell me which is easier to score in, I’d love to hear it straight from ya.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 01/10/09 at 11:32 AM ET

I love how anytime one of these articles comes up, people insist of hating on one of the players. Sheesh, can’t they both be awesome players? They play such different styles (not to mention positions on the ice) that Crosby/Ovechkin aren’t even directly comparable except in statistics. I can’t wait for the next Pens/Caps game to see these great players (with Malkin/Semin/Backstrom) all on the ice at the same time. Should be phenomenal!

Posted by penguinsfan on 01/10/09 at 11:56 AM ET

Don’t forget the Pens also play the Tharshers, Islanders, Maple Leafs, and Lightning several times each season, the four worst defensive teams in the NHL.  And Brodeur has been out with an injury most of the season.  And Lundquist has a GAA of over 3.3 in his last twenty games, not exactly elite netminding. 

Its funny how the first three years Washington was a team with a handful of NHL calibur players yet Ovechkin was still a statistically better player than Crosby, yet now the Capitols being a good team is a big part of why Ovechking is so good.  Ovechkin dominates, and dominated, no matter who he is playing with, but Crosby needs to play with skilled players in order to play at an elite level.  And Duhatschek can call it a fight, but Crosby jumped the guy right off the faceoff and started swinging, with a visor on I might add, and held him down so he wouldn’t get hit in return.  It was a cowardly thing to do.

Posted by Chris on 01/10/09 at 12:10 PM ET

Chris, I think if you look at your Pens history and watch the games, Crosby’s linemates have more often than not been Colby Armstrongs and Pascal Dupuis type players, and yet he’s still excelled. Sure, Hossa was a great wing, but that only lasted half a season. Sorry to disappoint you, but Crosby an elite player whether you think so or not. So is Ovechkin.

Posted by penguinsfan on 01/10/09 at 12:20 PM ET

I suppose you’ve never watched Malkin play much huh. To say he’s not good at defense is ridiculous.

Malkin’s a mediocre defensive player.  Sorry, not everything about the players on your favorite team can be described in superlatives.  He’s not terrible, but he’s far from good.  He’s borderline lazy on the backcheck because he’s constantly looking to jump, his defensive zone positioning is average to poor, and he’d rather dive in front of a moving car than a slapshot from the point.

He’s big, he’s fast and he’s strong, so those talents allow him to be passable defensively even though his heart clearly isn’t in that side of the ice… they just don’t get him past mediocre.

[Lets say a player can play 25 minutes a game. If you’re a coach, and don’t really have any scoring threats except that guy, would you really want to waste some of that time playing him on the PK?
/quote]

Well, if I had a PK that was barely 80% I might look into it.  And it’s not like playing Malkin 5 and a half a night on the PP is exactly clicking, what with the Pens hovering around 16% for the year.

Then again, Therrien’s a mediocre coach so it’s not like I’d expect him to think too far outside the box.

As far as comparing the strength of competition… Kev, baby, just stop.  The idea that Western teams (and I’m not even bringing Detroit into this, just Western teams in general) don’t play a significantly tougher schedule based on simply being in the West is silly.  Sorry, but when the Regular Season head to head between the two Conferences since the lockout is 326-198-68… there’s just no defending it.  The West is better.

Sure, you can kind of dog the records of the other Central teams, but a large part of the reason their records are a bit down is that Detroit beats the poo out of them year after year.  Detroit’s 72-20-13 against Central opponents since the lockout.  There’s not another division in the NHL with a team that’s going to drum the other Central teams that badly and consistently, and those yearly shellackings show up in the records of the other clubs… ESPECIALLY when the league was using that idiotic unbalanced schedule.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 01/10/09 at 02:03 PM ET

Sorry, not everything about the players on your favorite team can be described in superlatives.

Read that about 20 times and then think about your life. Maybe then you will realize what the rest of the world knows as fact. Datsyuk, Zetterber, and Hossa are NOT the best players in the league. Osgood sucks.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 01/10/09 at 02:17 PM ET

hey KK-
how about we also add the great story written about Ovie in that paper as well.  To me that story shows why Ovie is such a great player and leader besides his point total. 

here it is: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090110.OVECHKIN10/TPStory/Sports

Posted by how about on 01/10/09 at 03:43 PM ET

hockeyinHD-

“someone who plays 5+ minutes on PP, no wonder he has a lot of points”.  umm, how about he bust his butt in the offseason to get into tremendous shape so he can maintain an extreme level of play late in the game.
just b/c he plays a lot of PP minutes doesn’t mean he automatically gets a lot of points.  he gets those points b/c he is able to outlast players b/c of his conditioning and that is the reason he leads the league in 3rd period goals. he works for that, it is not given to him b/c of PP time!

Posted by excuses excuses on 01/10/09 at 03:49 PM ET

Read that about 20 times and then think about your life. Maybe then you will realize what the rest of the world knows as fact. Datsyuk, Zetterber, and Hossa are NOT the best players in the league. Osgood sucks.

-sigh-

Sometimes I forget the overwhelming bitterness of Pens fans.  Granted, it’s rather well deserved after not winning a Cup even with the league offices pulling so hard for them… but still.

By the way, I agree… I don’t think Datsyuk, Hossa and Zetterberg are the best players in the league.  Among them, sure.  Maybe if Shero wasn’t so busy locking up Brooks Orpik to long term deals Crosby or Malkin could have another winger to play with.  Alas.

I agree about Osgood, too.  He’s by far the worst goalie to ever win two Cups as a starter.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 01/10/09 at 08:11 PM ET