Ovechkin Ranking On Top 100 NHL Players List Sparking Major Debate

At age 36, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin is coming off one of the best seasons of his career — and is showing no signs of slowing down. However, a recent top 100 NHLers list has sparked controversy with where the Great 8 ranked.

Puckempire, a popular hockey Instagram account, released its list of top 100 NHL players on Friday. Connor McDavid took the top spot, and Sidney Crosby ended up in the top 10. However, Ovechkin came in at 34th.

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The list did not exactly go over well, as several took to social media to share their thoughts. Ovechkin ended up trending on Twitter.

“Go through the first 33 players (excluding some obvious ones) and say ‘insert player name’ is better than Alex Ovechkin… and tell me this is a good ranking,” a Twitter user named Maya wrote.

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Among those that ranked above him: Jason Robertson, Charlie McAvoy, Thomas Chabot and more. From a point-production standpoint, Ovechkin’s numbers rank much higher than multiple players ranked above him, and that’s not including defensemen. Two of Ovechkin’s teammates, John Carlson and Evgeny Kuznetsov, joined him on the list, ranking 69th and 99th respectfully.

Ovechkin is coming off his record ninth 50-goal season. Ovi also dished 40 assists for 90 points, marking his first 90-point campaign since 2009-10. Not only that, but he climbed from sixth on the NHL’s all-time goals list this season to third all-time, and passed Jaromir Jagr as the greatest European goal scorer of all time. He is at 780 goals and sits 20 away from 800, 22 from passing Gordie Howe and 115 from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record.

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