It’s often, especially in the playoffs, that a superstar player’s narrative is driven by their luck. It’s the ugliest word in sports, something out of the athlete’s control. By definition, a player does not create his or her own luck but luck certainly influences his or her reputation, often more than anything.
In the second-round playoff series between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals, there’s no lack of so-called superstars. In Washington, Alexander Ovechkin is a Hall-of-Fame-bound scorer with a penchant for burying pucks. New York has Henrik Lundqvist, an expert at protecting goal and also assuredly headed for the Hall of Fame
There’s another star, one whose shine carried the Rangers through the ills of the early season consistency blues: Rick Nash. You wouldn’t know it from looking at a post-game stat sheet.
For the most part, Washington’s superstars have been exactly that. It’s New York’s stars – and namely, Nash – that have yet to I’ve up to their scoring hype.
“There’s no doubt that one of my focuses is going to get my top players to play at a top level,” Vigneault said after Game 1. “Washington’s top players tonight, played a real strong game.”
That was a heartbreaking loss where it looked like the Capitals unpaused the game when the Rangers got up to use the bathroom with time waning towards a certain overtime. That can impact how a coach feels about his players, especially in the hour following that heartbreak.
In Game 2, however, the tide turned, the Rangers won and Nash especially had a brilliant game. Defenseman Dan Boyle credited Nash with the screen on his goal, saying it doesn’t go in without Ovechkin. So, is Nash good, or bad, or does it depend on the game, period or shift?
One thing’s for sure: right now, superstar Alexander Ovechkin is good. He’s very, very good.
With Ovechkin – anyone that watched the first three games of the series can confirm – it’s true with an exclamation point. Ovechkin’s the broad-backed horse carrying a ton more than he bargained and not slowing down a beat. He’s flexed every single muscle, as almost a warning shot that he came to play. The near sight of him is in the head of the New York Rangers. That wasn’t always the narrative.
Before this seeming dominance, Ovechkin was labeled ‘soft’ and ‘enigmatic’. The latter, a popular term ascribed to players whose cultural nuance is so foreign that they don’t even begin to deconstruct the player. Instead, it’s just a mystery. That connotation, especially in sports is negative.
But that narrative, the one that’s dogged Ovechkin, the one that’s made more than a few columnist look foolish, is also being driven by his team. The team that he is carrying.
Barry Trotz, the man credited with ‘fixing’ the great Ovechkin. said he first spoke with the Russian superstar in Las Vegas during the NHL awards. That’s when this transition from a man into a titanic monument missing only a sterling silver cup began.
“Really what I told him, I wanted him to be more active … I thought he had too much quiet in his game,” Trotz said after a Game 1 victory at Madison Square Garden. “I said that, when I was in the other conference, we talked about how he wasn’t skating and how easy he is to together.”
Here’s where it’s easy to say that Trotz unleashed the fury. It’s the perfect place, it’s right there. Except: Ovechkin has always been an elite playoff performer, with perceptions sometimes changed by bad luck.
Look at his playoffs last year: one goal. Those are Rick Nash numbers. His shooting percentage – which is driven by myriad factors: luck, goaltending, shot selection (although it’s hard to say an Ovechkin shot it ever bad) – was 3.3%. This year, he’s shooting at 9.5%, still below his career average.
“He’s a guy that’s been maybe a little miscast in the past,” Trotz admitted.
That’s the key right there: miscast. Ovechkin was miscast. Expectations of regular-season goal-scoring can be tricky and anecdotal. You extrapolate those impressive totals over 82 games and absolutely, the guy should be scoring a goal every two games. But that’s not how it works. Scoring is streaky.
Just don’t tell the Rangers and Vigneault that, because he’s expecting a lot more from his star in Nash, who was arguably the best player in the ice for the Rangers in their losing effort on Monday night.
Nash spoke with reporters after his Game 3 performance, in which he attempted 14 shots on goal. If that’s not trying to will, with everything you have, a puck into the twine, then he may never score again.
“The high-paid guys that are supposed to score are supposed to in the playoffs,” Nash told reporters on Tuesday, according to the Bergen Record, regarding the scrutiny he’s faced. “When that doesn’t happen, this is to be expected.”
Vigneault, made a similar point, talking about how important scoring is for guys that are “paid to score”.
“This is a results-oriented business and you can play real well and do the right things with and without the puck at both ends and through the neutral zone,” Vigneault said. “But at the end of the day … you expect Rick Nash to find the back of the net.”
Nash wasn’t the only player that Vigenault called to the carpet, but he’s the highest-paid forward on the team. The one that carried them for the better part of the regular season until the goal-scoring well dried up, producing nothing but dust.
Nash trapped in playoff-performer-purgatory. He’s a child’s toy fallen out of favor, covered in dust and cobwebs in the basement closet.
Ovechkin, on the other hand, with his “reformed” play has now moved past the results aspect of stardom – at least until his next goal-scoring drought – and rest on just playing well and having a general impact on the game.
“[Ovechkin] is a big-time player and sometimes it’s not what you get, it’s what you leave,” Trotz said after his team’s Game 2 loss. “He’s leaving an impression on them physically and also with his skill level. He’s a force.”
It probably helped for Ovechkin that he’s scored in two of the three games against the Rangers.
It’s not fair to compare Ovechkin and Nash really, because objectively, Oveckin has been better. What is comparable is how their hometown fans and media have covered their playoff ‘struggles’.
It was the same story last year in the playoffs for Nash. If his near-perfect shot doesn’t ring off Alec Martinez of the Los Angeles Kings’ stick in overtime of the Stanley Cup final, maybe everything is different. In that sense, the sample size is seconds, even smaller.
It’s a moment that defines a career. Fortunately, there’s plenty of chance to have a big moment, because of how anecdotal recall memory is. Nash, with a string of bounces and some luck, can change perception entirely.
Who knows, maybe the narrative then will be that Alain Vigneault, somewhere in a Las Vegas hotel room, high above the Sunset Strip changed Nash’s game. I guess it’s up to Nash and random static that joins these players on the ice to decide when that will be.
