I had a nice post all written about Sidney Crosby and his excitement over finally getting a Poni, and how that excitement translated to him taking the NHL goal scoring lead. It was a touching story. A story of a 22 year old boy who finally got his wish.
Crosby had taken the goal scoring lead on Saturday against the Dallas Stars. His 43rd and 44th goals of the year added to what is a new career high every time he scores a goal for the rest of the season. His previous career high in a season was his rookie year in 2005-06, when he scored 39. The two goal game on Saturday was also his 13th multi-goal game of the season, which includes three hat tricks.
Then, tonight, Alex Ovechkin came along. Mr. I Have A Brand New Haircut That My Mommy Gave Me Ovechkin decided he didn’t care for Crosby’s Little Poni story and went ahead and scored two goals of his own, the first time he’d scored in seven games.
Thanks for nothing Ovechkin...
I cursed Ovechkin. I cursed him because he ruined my original post. He could have scored one goal and ended his drought, and still left Sid the Kid with the scoring lead. But no, he had to tell Crosby “I score goal, I lead league too.”
After a few minutes, I calmed down. I realized that I was watching one of the two best players in the league. Sure, he ruined my cute little post poking fun at Crosby. But then I thought to myself, “Crosby will do his Greg Louganis impression soon enough, then whine about it, and you’ll have hours of fun with that!”
What am I getting at here? Crosby and Ovechkin will give everyone plenty of things to poke fun at throughout the rest of this season. However, the rest of this season will also give us the pleasure of watching the two best offensive players in the NHL go head-to-head in the race for the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy.
In 58 games, Ovechkin has 44 goals. Crosby has 44 goals through 65 games…but I’m sure NBC just cut away from regular programming to tell you that. Both teams have 16 games remaining. They go head-to-head two more times this season; March 24th in Washington and April 6th in Pittsburgh.
After I realized all of these things, I wasn’t as mad at Ovechkin anymore. Yes, he ruined my original post, but what he and Crosby can give us for the rest of the season should be very fun to watch… and bonus: I was still able to poke fun at both of them!
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Carlos Figueiredo can usually be found explaining the greatness of Marty Brodeur and David Clarkson over at Speaking of the Devils. If you’re up for upper-division Twitter, he can be found at @SpeakoftheDevs.
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