Here's a partial defense of the point some of us are making. Ovechkin signed for 9.538 starting in 08-09, on a 56.7m cap. He was the highest cap hit from 08-09 to 14-15, in 15-16 Kane/Toews jumped him, in 16-17 Kopitar jumped him, and he remained 4th in 17-18. Finally, this year, he's going to be down in 8th after McDavid, Tavares, Price and Eichel all have their contracts start. So basically it has taken a decade and the cap going from 56.7 to 79.5 to push Ovechkin's cap hit out of the top 5 in the NHL.
The point that we're trying to make is that despite living up to his 13 year, 124 million dollar contract, the Caps may have been better served signing him to something like 15 years, 132 million (8.8 cap hit) or 16 years, 140 million (8.75 cap hit). Ovechkin would have still been the highest paid player in the NHL, with the largest and longest contract, but the Caps would also have an additional ~700k in cap space each year. That might only be ~1% of the cap, but in a hard cap world, every little bit helps.
