There is no question that Ovechkin has more awards.
Because of that, history will remember him as greater than both.
But real hockey and highlight reel stat hockey are different things.
He’s also the biggest floater of his time.
Ovechkin is closer to Brett Hull than most would like to admit.
If you put a team of 2-way Stevie Y’s against a team of Ovechkins, Stevie Y would own the puck.
The Ovechkin team would just be standing around by the face off circle waiting for someone else to do something so they could get a one timer.
I don’t even think it would be close.
If they played 100 games, Stevie Y would win all 100.
Complete hockey players are guys you win with.
It’s not a coincidence that both these guys have won more.
I agree that complete players are very valuable to a winning franchise, but dont pretend that both Stevie and Sakic werent blessed with having dynasty type clubs in the pre-cap era. They dont win their Cups if it wasnt for their all-star support (Lidstrom, Feds, Shanny, later had Hasek, Hull, Robitaille, and Forsberg, Roy, Bourque, Blake). Ovie didnt have those kinds of players. Backstrom, Kuzy, and Carlson are good and all, but not the legends the Wings and Avs had.
And Ovie may be more one dimensial today, but in his prime he was anything but one dimensional. He was getting 50-60 assists, 100+ points, and 200+ hits a season. You dont win 3 Harts by being one dimensional, come on now. The guy is a winger, youre not expected to play a strong 2 way game on the wing. Last Selke winning winger was like 20 years ago. Do you think Yzerman and Sakic were greater than Howe, Jagr, Richard, Lafleur too?