to get back to your A point from the previous post: He has shown flashes of elite passing, and strong hitting, but those have never been consistent. You'll see a great pass here and there and a strong hit, but again, those have become rarer and rarer. and to your C point, his character of the ice doesn't mean anything, unless its clearly detrimental, to leading a team. I have watched ovechkin forever, he has never had a leadership quality about him. He is one hell of a scorer, but that is about all i can say for him. simply scoring does not equate to strong leadership and strong locker room presence. Just because he scores a **** ton, does not grant him leadership qualities.
But to this point, who is the person that is supposed to motivate the team when they're underperforming? rile up the boys? chat to the coach about what's going wrong? I understand there have been other issues with caps playoffs teams, but averting all blame from ovechkin doesnt cut it. A strong leader makes his team better, makes the players around him better. Ovechkin has had teams with issues come playoff time, but it is on him to make up for the mistakes. the caps have won the presidents trophy what, like 4 times in the Ovi era? if he can't lead any one of the president's trophy winning teams past at least the second round, that says something about his leadership abilities.
We can talk about Ovechkin until the cows come home, but he's one of the few that does something and has a positive impact overall. The Caps manage to be successful in the regular season with him doing his job and other doing their jobs. In the playoffs, he continues to do his job. He doesn't elevate his game anymore, nor does he fold under the pressure. He's just there and he scores goals. It's not enough, and you could ask more of him, but others just go silent or are even detrimental to the team.
When I look at the Caps, I see a losing culture and Ovechkin is part of it as the captain of the Washington Capitals. He is not much of a leader, we've seen it at this point. If you wanted to get rid of this losing culture, you would have to either:
1. Be lucky and go on a deep run to create a sense of confidence among the players.
2. Have a far more strict ownership and upper management to change the organizational culture.
3. Fire everyone and trade everyone (not realistically feasible).
So what can be done? This season, I was crossing my fingers for the Caps to go on a lucky run just like the Sens did last year. Make no mistake, shitty teams get past the 2nd round all the time. The 2nd round is an arbitrary mark. Losing in the 2nd round is the same as losing in the Stanley Cup Final in this playoff structure. Shitty teams get to the conference final because they have an easy path, while stronger teams can get bounced before that because they happen to face the best team in the league early. I've seen terrible teams get within a game or two of the Stanley Cup Final. It was the Sens last year, the Habs 4 years ago or the Habs the year Halak was invincible for 3 weeks.
Number one clearly isn't happening this season, CBJ is out to get the Caps.
Number two isn't happening anytime soon, Leonsis won't change anything, nor will he sell the team.
Number three will send the Caps to the purgatory, and it's back to square one. Were you a Caps fan back when they were a shitty non-playoff team and MCI Center had 5000 people per game? I enjoy the little success we have in the regular season, and the last thing I want is this fanbase to vanish because we're no longer a competitive team. I say, let's ride Ovi and co. until their careers are over, and then start with something fresh. I can tell you right now that we will be one of the basement team the day Ovechkin hangs 'em up or the day he requests a trade. Let's appreciate what we have, because the Stanley Cup won't get anywhere close to DC for at least a decade.
