Sidney Crosby And Alex Ovechkin Could Both Miss The 2023 NHL Playoffs

Both superstars haven't been absent from the postseason in the same year since they were rookies in 2006.

It’s no secret that Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin are the defining players of the NHL’s post-2005-lockout era. They rank 1-2 in goals and points over that span, and their teams rank second and third in total standings points (behind only the Boston Bruins) since then as well. Sid and Ovi; Ovi and Sid: Their intertwined careers have led the NHL out of its darkest time and into what feels like a much brighter future today.

That’s why it’s so disorienting that the sport’s twin fixtures could be staring at an unwelcome milestone this year. According to FiveThirtyEight's forecast, the Capitals have all but been eliminated from the 2023 postseason race, with less than a 1% chance to keep skating after the regular season ends. And while Pittsburgh is doing better — Crosby’s team sits at 62% — it is no sure thing that the Pens can hold onto their playoff slot with the Panthers and Sabres nipping at their heels. This means there’s a real danger that, for the first time since Ovechkin and Crosby’s rookie season of 2005-06, both future Hall of Famers might be on the sidelines for the NHL playoffs.

Back in ‘06, the NHL was a very different place than it is now. The league was coming off of losing an entire season due to the lockout, and it was starving for star power as the best players of the previous era — which, unhelpfully, had also seen scoring plummet to lows not seen in decades — were aging and struggling to adapt to the post-lockout game. New rules were put in place to encourage more scoring, but hockey also needed fresh talent to emerge and claim the mantle of generational stardom that had belonged to players such as Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

Luckily, the No. 1 picks of the 2004 (Ovechkin) and 2005 (Crosby) drafts were willing and able to carry that burden, practically from the first time they skated onto an NHL ice surface. Crosby scored 39 goals as an 18-year-old rookie and ranked sixth in the league in scoring with 102 points; 20-year-old Ovechkin one-upped him with 52 goals (tied for third) and 106 points (third outright). In January 2006, Ovi also delivered a goal that still rates as his best ever, if not the best ever scored in NHL history.

Both players’ teams took a little longer to catch up with their talented leaders. The Penguins and Capitals were a combined 62 games under .500 in 2005-06, and while Pittsburgh would improve enough to lose in 5 games to the Senators in the first round of the 2007 playoffs, it wasn’t until 2007-08 that both Ovechkin and Crosby shared the postseason stage. But they would meet for the first time in a playoff series the following season — Crosby got the upper hand, as he often did — and the rivalry was off and running. Crosby and Ovechkin would both lead their teams to the playoffs in 12 of the next 13 seasons (2013-14 was the lone exception, when Washington missed out), and the pair would even face off against each other four times along the road to the Stanley Cup — which either Crosby or Ovechkin won every season from 2015-16 through 2017-18.

But as each player now approaches his forties, neither has been quite as great as usual this season. Ovechkin’s 43 adjusted goals are his fewest in a season since 2011-12, while Crosby’s 90 adjusted points are the second-fewest of his career while playing a reasonably full season. More importantly, team-building missteps have been made while trying to extend both Washington and Pittsburgh’s windows of contention around their signature players. The two clubs rank Nos. 31-32 (from youngest to oldest, out of 32 teams) in average age this season, and no player has produced even 14.0 adjusted goals above replacement aside from Crosby or Ovechkin on their respective teams. The core talent around both stars is no longer in place to contend for a Stanley Cup — or perhaps even make the playoffs — anymore.

It’s already too late for Washington, as the Caps sit well outside the Eastern Conference’s wild card race with far too few games left to play. For Pittsburgh, the crisis could be averted yet, as the Pens have five games left against the NHL’s eighth-easiest remaining schedule by average opponent Elo rating. (The Panthers play a very slightly harder remaining schedule, for whatever that is worth.) But Pittsburgh needs to reverse a trend that has seen them go 8-9 since the beginning of March and perfectly .500 (14-14) since the All-Star break if they want to hold off Florida, a team with a better goal differential and probably superior talent on paper. If the Penguins can’t do that, Crosby will be joining Ovechkin on the proverbial golf course this spring — something which can’t help but feel like the end of an era in NHL history.