Not to push the issue, but I just can't seem to understand why you're judging a 19 year old based on 1 or 2 big games.
thomasincanada said:
Ovechkin was unable to deliver against the best Canadian World Junior Team ever, full of players his own age and some older. I can hardly hold that against him.
Who was older than Ovechkin? He was an '85 and in his last WJC. And who cares if they're the best team Canada had ever -- they were still a junior team. You'd think, considering what he's doing against the best players in the world, he would have ripped apart any junior team, no matter how good they were.
But no, things like this happen to the best of them.
thomasincanada said:
Crosby was unable to deliver against possibly the best CHL team ever, full of players older than him, 4 of whom have seen some NHL ice time this year with probably 2 or 3 more to join next year. I don't believe *any* of Crosby's Rimouski teammates have seen NHL ice time this year.
Who cares. It's still not even close to WJC level. That London team only had 5 players that were good enough to ever play in a WJC. Don't make excuses, Crosby was certainly NHL level last year but was still blanked by a sub-WJC, CHL junior level team in one of the biggest games of his career up to that point.
thomasincanada said:
It would be lame to judge a guy based on one game, but at some point he's going to have to step up and be the best player in a game he is supposed to.
You sound like you think Malkin is 28 or something. Learning what it takes to win is part of the development process as much as anything. It comes from experience and being on both the winning & losing sides. That's what Crosby and Ovechkin are still learning right now too.