Questioning Ovechkin's quest for 60, and more notes

For what does it gain a man to score 60 goals and not qualify for the playoffs? Scott Cunningham/Getty Images

With Alexander Ovechkin on the cusp of the first 60-goal season in 12 years, NHL coaches are having a love affair with the incandescent Capitals star.

Phoenix Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky, the ultimate authority on the matter, says Ovechkin is capable of scoring 90.

Buffalo's Lindy Ruff, from the non-gushing school, sounds like he wants to adopt Ovechkin whenever the subject of the fabulous Russian left winger is raised.

Says Montreal's Guy Carbonneau: "Speed, strength, reach, shot, moves. You can't stop him. He's got options ... And he plays like he's having fun. He hits people. He gets hit, and he smiles. We were playing there one day and he went to hit (Canadiens defenseman Francis) Bouillon. Bouillon comes back at him and hits him pretty good (with a shoulder). Cuts him. [Ovechkin] skates by our bench and says, 'That was a good hit!' I don't know if he knew his nose was broken at that point."

But if you peer beyond the encomiums, and scrape away the superlatives, there are some lingering questions -- not about Ovechkin, per se, but about the significance of the goal milestone he seems certain to surpass after banking in an empty-netter against Nashville on Tuesday night for his 58th of the season.

As San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson says, "Remember his team hasn't made the playoffs yet."

The comment is pointed, not snarky, and it leads directly to the heart of hockey. The NBA can have Showtime, but the NHL has never handed out style points. If the two could be combined -- the Canadiens that won five Stanley Cups from 1956 to 1960 and the Edmonton teams that took four Cups in the 1980s were the hallmarks -- but their offensive explosiveness was not the end but a means to the end, the final block of the Cup parade route.

Adds Wilson: "It's like Pete Maravich. I'm reading [Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich] right now. He played college ball for his (father, Press) and his Dad didn't care if they won. All he wanted was Pistol to score 50 points a night. I'm not saying that's what's happening in hockey, but when you have someone who is just trying to score, you have other things you're giving away, I think. The scoring list is way down. A lot of guys are in the low 20s. The Devils have been in first place (in the Atlantic Division) a lot of the year, and they've got one 20-goal scorer. We have two. What does Anaheim have? ...

"It's not the way it is with home runs where you can correlate good teams with power," Wilson continues. "That's not to say we're not trying to score. We're trying to score every single shift. But sometimes when you're scoring 50 or 60 you have to cheat (defensively) to do it. If you're a team that relies on one guy to score -- just one guy -- you know how easy it is to knock that team out of the playoffs? Or if you've got a pretty good defensive team, how easy it is to stop him? He's done."

Of the 15 leading NHL goal scorers through Tuesday, the top two, Ovechkin (57) and Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk (49), played for teams outside of the eight playoff positions. St. Louis' Brad Boyes was tied for fifth with 38. Columbus captain Rick Nash was tied for sixth with 37. Two others in the top 15 -- Chicago's Patrick Sharp and Florida's Olli Jokinen -- also were on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

"He's a great player," Thrashers checking center Bobby Holik says of Ovechkin. "He's an excellent offensive player, him and (Kovalchuk). But teams looking to be successful don't necessarily want their forwards to score 65 goals. The thing that impresses me most is Detroit getting 100 points every year. When was the last time they had a 60-goal scorer? (Steve Yzerman, in 1989-90). Fifteen goals or 50, it's how your team does.

"It means more for marketing purposes than it does for a team," Holik adds. "I think the league cherishes it. You can market superstars. If the team doesn't do well, it gets forgotten very quickly. Not to take anything from the individual who's accomplishing this, but Old School players, or players who have been around, or coaches, they maybe look at it a different way. If you get 60 wins in a season, that's the (60) you should be looking for."

In a league that needs a breakthrough star to connect the pockets of interest between cities in the United States, Wilson and Holik offer an argument that is counterintuitive. But that doesn't mean it is wrong. By all means, hail Ovechkin's goal-scoring prowess in an era where tallies are tougher to come by than in Gretzky's day. But like Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh, Ovechkin ultimately will be judged by if -- and how quickly -- he can lead his team to the Stanley Cup.

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