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Crosby on the verge of beating Ovechkin again
- Updated: May 6, 2016
3:29 PM ET
ARLINGTON, Va. — If Sidney Crosby once again steals thunder from Alex Ovechkin, will history view the Washington Capitals’ captain any differently?
If Ovechkin cannot guide his team back from the 3-1 series deficit it faces, with a possible season-ending game set for Saturday night, 7:15 ET, at Verizon Center in Washington, will it somehow diminish all that Ovechkin has accomplished?
Difficult questions, but these are difficult times for the NHL’s best regular-season team.
“I think it’s too easy for people to attack his legacy if something like this happens,” said former Capital and longtime analyst Alan May on Friday after the Capitals went through a spirited workout at their Arlington practice facility.
“But when you look at how well he’s played in these playoffs, the heart and the soul that he’s put into the game, what he continued to do during the regular season, I don’t think it can affect him.”
In some ways, the story of this series is the story of Ovechkin versus Crosby, head to head.
Close but no cigar for the great Russian winger.
Going back to their days in the world juniors, when Crosby’s Canadian team overwhelmed Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin and a powerful Russian squad in North Dakota in 2005 in the gold-medal game, Crosby has dominated these confrontations.
There was, of course, the epic 2009 second-round series won by the Pittsburgh Penguins in a Game 7 blowout at Verizon Center.
Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, seen here at the NHL awards in 2006, broke into the league together in 2005. Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images
The next season, Crosby’s Canadian team crushed Russia in the quarterfinals of the Vancouver Olympics en route to a gold medal thanks to a Crosby overtime goal against the U.S.
Ovechkin’s host Russian team didn’t play Canada in Sochi but was bounced in the quarterfinals as Crosby earned his second straight gold medal.
And now this, the Capitals having dropped three straight one-goal games to face an early playoff elimination once again.
The two great players have spent a lot of time on the ice together in this series. They have combined for one goal (that by Ovechkin) and three assists (two from Ovechkin), and, although both have played well, this has been a …
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