Ovechkin ties Mark Messier with career goal 694, his 10th goal in his last 5 games

for all the "if this guy had never gotten cancer/concussed/injured" and "if that guy had maintained through a season his goal per game pace as that one game where he got a hat trick" type of arguments that this place is willing to entertain, the similarities between Ovi and Kovy is probably the least absurd. theyre about the same size, shoot right, and came out of Russia playing very similar styles. Kovy was like the prototype for Ovi and ended up leaving the league as a perfect point per game player in a pretty low scoring era.

the biggest divergence has always been that when Ovi got drafted the Caps vowed to find the perfect center to play with him - when Kovy got drafted he went to Atlanta...

its possible that if Kovy was receiving the same kind of focus from a team to help him succeed, the way Ovi did, he may never have left for a better situation in Russia and would be much closer as a comparison today. hes not, so it is what it is, but still its not THAT crazy to think about.

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