Follow @BetNHLWell I hope you’ve been enjoying the Ovechkin sims so far. This is the third and final part of the Ovechkin sims, as we put him on various teams in the NHL(via NHL 14), then simulate a season to see just how well he does.
In the previous parts, Ovechkin played for the Bruins, Blackhawks and Red Wings where he won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks, matched up incredibly well with the Red Wings, and upset the chemistry at the Bruins.
Then he played at the Kings, Rangers, Sharks and Lightning where he played horribly with the Kings and Sharks, had a fantastic season with the Rangers who were the most dominant team of the season, and had an interesting season with the Lightning where him and Stamkos lit the ice up – but the rest of the team failed to deliver.
In this final adventure, we will see how Ovechkin does on:
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montreal Canadiens
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Toronto Maple Leafs
Let’s get started with Graemes team, the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal Canadiens: Many people thought that Vanek joining the Habs was what they needed, but that unfortunately didn’t work out. Would Ovechkin be just what the Habs offense needed?
In the regular season at least – hell yes. They topped their division, came 2nd in the conference and 3rd in the east. Ovechkin was on the low end of goals at 32, but he more than made up for it with 53 assists. This was the MOST assists in all of these simulatons, and he had 85 points – the most points along with the Chicago Blackhawks. A +/- of +36 was his highest by far – next highest was 30. Just 7 PPG but 4 SHG and 6 GWG, with 321 shots. Ovechkin was just a creative force for the Habs.
And then they lost in Round 1 to the Hurricanes. Sigh. They lost 4-2 in the series, and Ovechkin got 3 goals and just 1 assist – almost as if they changed their strategy. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy, while PK got the Norris and Price the Vezina.
Summary: Despite a disappointing playoff series, Ovechkin worked very very well for the Habs. Graeme says “Let’s bring him in in real life and see how he does!”.
Edmonton Oilers: Is this what the Oilers need to turn things around? Amazingly – YES. Oilers WON their conference, WON their division and came 3rd in the league. Ovechkin scored 45 goals and had 38 assists. He also had a +24, 11 PPG, 2 SHG and the most game winning goals of the simulations – 13 game winning goals scored, as clearly Ovechkin was the star and hero for the Edmonton Oilers.
Sadly they collapsed in the first round of the Playoffs. They were up 3-0 against the Coyotes, and amazingly lost 4-3. Ovechkin had 2 goals, 5 assists and won the Richard.
Summary: When it came to the Playoffs, Ovechkin couldn’t carry the Oilers alone. But he did a tremendous job for them during the regular season and clearly worked very well.
Pittsburgh Penguins: The big one – Ovechkin on the same team as Crosby. Plus all of the other power houses – would they be just unstoppable?
Well they had a great regular season – although not as good as Ovechkin on the Rangers. They came 2nd in their Division & Conference, and 3rd overall. Ovechkins stats were actually quite low – 31 goals, 44 assists for 75 points – the 2nd lowest of all the simulations. He had a +/- of 12, 9 PPG and 7 GWG and a very low shot total of 278 shots. 3rd lowest in the simulations.
In the Playoffs they beat the Devils 4-3 in Round 1. In Game 7 Ovechkin scored twice to win the game. They then beat the Rangers 4-3, with Ovechkin racking up 2 assists in the final game. Then they got hammered by the Red Wings 4-1 – who went on to win the cup. Ovechkin got 5 goals and 9 assists during the playoffs.
Summary: Unfortunately, Ovechkin did not do too well at the Pittsburgh Penguins. While he looked solid during the playoffs, he wasn’t very good during the regular season. Could be a case of giving it a year or two for it all to work out – but the Ovechkin/Crosby dream team was not to be.
And last……and most certainly least…..
Toronto Maple Leafs: We left these last for a reason – because we wanted to end with some comic relief.
And oh boy, is there comic relief here.
Ovechkin led the Leafs to 7TH in their division, 13TH in the conference, and 27TH overall. An absolute freaking disaster.
This was the guy who took the Oilers to the playoffs and with the Leafs they almost had the worst record in the league!
Do you know how bad it was? The Capitals did better WITHOUT Ovechkin than the Leafs did with him.
He had just 18 goals and 47 assists for a 65 point total – although amazingly he did 1 point worse on the Sharks. His +/- was MINUS ONE – the first time that happened in all of these simulations. And he had 0 game winning goals – probably because the Leafs didn’t win enough games for him to do that.
SUMMARY: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
And for those curious – here were all of the regular season stats collected for Ovechkin sorted by points:
Click the image for big. Thanks for reading everyone – we’ll have some more sims to kill time over the next week or so as we anxiously await the start of the new season.
