IT IS the most unassail able offense-related re cord in NHL history, the 550 shots Phil Esposito sent on net in the 1970-71 season during which he would plant himself in front and hammer rebound after rebound in what became a 76-goal year.
No one has come within even 100 shots of the record that helped inspire the famous bumper sticker ubiquitous in the Hub those days that read, “Jesus Saves . . . and Espo scores on the rebound!”
But now, the unassailable record is under assault . . . and it’s under assault from the greatest and most compelling athlete in the game.
It’s under assault from Alex Ovechkin, hockey’s Big O, hockey’s greatest player.
Ovechkin, who recorded 446 shots last year to surpass Paul Kariya’s 429 in 1998-99 for second-best all-time, had 216 shots through Friday, an average of 6.35 per that would bring him to 505. But Ovechkin, who missed two games early in the season, is averaging 7.875 shots per over the past 16 games, a pace that would allow him to challenge the historically unchallengeable.
The gulf between Ovechkin and every other player in the league is growing wider by the day. Even if Ovechkin may not be the most talented, or the best skater, he is by the far the most compelling athlete in the league. You can’t take your eyes off him. Indeed, the Big O is the most compelling player in the league since the pre-concussion Eric Lindros.
Ovechkin never stops. He is a mix of ferocity and fury; insatiable in his hunger for the puck, his desire to score, his will to win. He is Jim Brown on skates, a dominant physical force of nature who would just as soon go through an opponent as around one (or two, or three). He’s what Rocket Richard must have been like in the ’40s and ’50s.
Too bad, though, Ovechkin has approximately one-third the number of All-Star votes as NHL favorite son Sidney Crosby. One-third as many votes as Crosby? Why, the league’s best player has one half as many votes as Alex Kovalev, and just over half as many as the great Alex Tanguay!
The NHL should be embarrassed for itself.
Look, Crosby is an admirable individual and great player. But the NHL has made a drastic error in anointing No. 87 as The Chosen One. The NHL’s All-Crosby-All-The-Time marketing machine has been detrimental to the sport by virtue of its exclusionary policy.
We get it, Crosby is Canadian and Ovechkin is Russian. But we also get that focusing on one athlete at the expense of a contemporary at least his equal and now clearly his superior, is stupid strategy that makes for horrible business policy.
This Thursday’s Red Wings-Blackhawks New Year’s Day outdoor extravaganza at Wrigley Field should be a bonanza for the NHL following last year’s Pittsburgh-Buffalo classic.
Next year’s game should feature Ovechkin . . . against the Rangers at either the new Yankee Stadium or in DC. For if the Winter Classic is becoming a signature showcase for the NHL, the first day of 2010 should be the league’s showcase for Ovechkin, the NHL’s Player of the Year for 2008 who is primed to claim that honor for 2009, as well.
The assault already has begun.
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If Ovechkin is the Player of 2008, then the Executive of the Year belongs by acclamation to Chicago owner Rocky Wirtz, whose passion and commitment have been critical in the rebirth of the Blackhawks.
The Headliner of the Year, quite obviously, goes to the Notorious Mr. Avery, Page Six Sean himself, the Breakfast Club member currently serving detention for throwing spit balls at his teachers and snapping the brassiere straps of the girls sitting in front of him.
Finally, how to explain to the children what Friday’s NHL.com homepage had to do with hockey exactly, the one that featured Dallas Stars cheerleaders cavorting in skimpy bathing suits?
You’re up, Commissioner.