Washington Capitals: Top Three Players Of The Early Season
By CJ Witt
Alex Ovechkin
There was some that thought maybe going forward you would start to see the decline of Alexander Ovechkin. We’ve seen his best, it’s all downhill from here. Well, here we are, ten games into the season and Ovechkin has 10 goals and 18 points.
Look at the scoring leads for the NHL right now. As I write this, Leon Draisaitl leads with 20 points. Connor McDavid is right behind him with 19. Guess who’s third right now? The 36-year-old Ovechkin.
Playing on a line with Kuznetsov, his stats will be similar, but we’ll take a look at them anyways.
CF% – 54.98%
SCF% – 55.10%
HDCF% – 63.46%
xGF% – 60.06%
Maybe in the most unsurprising development ever, Ovechkin leads the team in shots while 5v5 with 21. The next highest being 16, that number being shared by Kuznetsov, Connor McMichael and Garnet Hathaway of all guys.
Ovechkin also has a pretty sizeable lead in individual scoring chances. Ten games in and he has 28 scoring chances. The next highest, again, weird to say, but Garnet Hathaway with 21 individual scoring chances.
If you talk about Kuznetsov, you probably have to talk about Ovechkin too, and vice versa. These guys have been leading the charge basically since puck drop in game number one. Ten goals in ten games. Nearly two points per game, at age thirty-six. Impressive!