Alex Ovechkin and the end of playoff choker label (Trending Topics)

The NHL's Eastern Conference Final begin Saturday afternoon, and for the 10th season running, Alex Ovechkin will not be participating.

For years, Ovechkin has been dogged by criticisms of his play, and particularly that in the postseason, because for as good as he is and basically always has been, he's never been able to guide the Washington Capitals past the second round of the playoffs. And he's only even gotten that far four times; that's only one more trip than the number of times the Caps have missed the playoffs entirely with him on the roster.

But the good news is that people seem to finally be starting to realize, “Hey, maybe literally all those Capitals teams just weren't good enough, and Ovechkin couldn't be superhuman in comparison with his already-superhuman performances in the regular season.”

Joel Ward's quote from just before Wednesday's fateful Game 7 about the horrible randomness of hockey dictating results so often going against what the math says is telling in that it describes Ovechkin's situation precisely: He has been excellent in the playoffs for years, and the Caps have never given him sufficient backup.

In terms of both generating shots and goals, the Capitals have lagged significantly behind Ovechkin and his linemates, which you would expect to some point. If nothing else, Ovechkin is at least a demigod when it comes to putting shots on goal, and this is true, to a lesser extent, of goal-scoring. His teammates are therefore clearly less so.

What those charts don't tell you explicitly, but what you should know implicitly, is that Ovechkin is also a driver of shooting percentage. In fact, his 9.02 percent on-ice shooting efficiency is more than one-third higher than that of the rest of the team (6.76 percent) when he's off the ice. Interestingly, though, his teammates have actually outpaced him in this regard over the last two seasons, but on samples so small (just 670 total shots, of which Ovechkin was on the ice for 288) that it's tough to draw conclusions.

Part of the reason the “Ovechkin is a losing loser” nonsense has faded this year in particular is that it's become more obvious there isn't much of a supporting cast of forwards around him. There are some great complementary players; Nicklas Backstrom is obviously a strong No. 1 center in this league and Braden Holtby is, as I've talked about before, a borderline-elite netminder. But beyond that, this club has dropped severely in quality from the 2010 era, when everyone fired on all cylinders (except the Semyon Varlamov/Jose Theodore tandem, who were pathetic and cost the team a legitimate shot at the Cup).

Marcus Johansson is a good secondary piece, and guys like Andre Burakovsky and Evgeny Kuznetsov are still improving. John Carlson is a good defenseman, as are Matt Niskanen and Karl Alzner. But beyond that, this is a roster of forwards in particular for whom you say, “Really? That guy gets significant minutes?” Say what you like about Joel Ward but, “Third on the team among forwards in 5-on-5 TOI per game,” is not a thing he should be. Eric Fehr, Troy Brouwer, Brooks Laich. Yeesh. This is a team that's exceptionally thin up front, and even with a solid defense and a world-class top line, and great goaltending, that's going to show up eventually.

Ovechkin, like a lot of guys who haven't won a Cup, has always carried with him a “choker” moniker despite the fact that he's been basically dragging his teams' offensive production to postseason respectability. There were only two playoffs in which he didn't significantly outproduce his teammates, and those were when Dale Hunter and Adam Oates were his coaches. That seems like more of a “coaching” thing, doesn't it? And maybe a little “bad luck.”

So everyone was furious that he made a quote-unquote guarantee, because he's a choker, but then he went out and did what he's always done: Significantly out-produce his team against a hot goaltender. He scored all one of his team's goal in Game 7. A little help from someone besides Holtby — that they even got to overtime is entirely down to these two players — would have been nice.

It also isn't in any way beneficial to the Caps that the goalies he's played in the postseason over the years are these guys. It's been very rare that Washington hasn't run into a great goaltending performance, but you see why (the “Ovechkin off” number here includes everything they did in the playoffs, not just their numbers against Washington):

Lundqvist five times in six years doesn't seem very fair, but that's life. Halak twice in five doesn't either. Mix in Dwayne Roloson on that improbable run for the Lightning, and the last days of Tim Thomas, and that's basically a murderers' row of goaltenders who have murdered the Caps' goals per game numbers. And yet Ovechkin consistently rubs their save percentages down to nubs when he's on the ice. And until Holtby arrived, Washington's goaltending was completely outclassed every year.

And even with these more recent relative personal struggles, Ovechkin remains an elite postseason performer; Since the 2005 lockout, he's second in goals per playoff game (0.5) among guys with at least 30 postseason appearances, behind only Mike Cammalleri (0.53), and Cammalleri has played in 40 fewer games. In terms of points per game, he's ninth by the same games-played cutoff, behind some bums like Crosby and Malkin, Giroux and Kane, Cammalleri and Staal, Spezza and Zetterberg. Not bad company, especially because he's only one-hundredth of a point ahead of noted Clutch Playoff Performer Everyone Loves And Thinks Is Great Daniel Briere.

Basically, to ask any more of Ovechkin to get his team over the hump (“the hump” in this case being years of mismanagement preceded by years of bad goaltending) is to ask the impossible. We've seen time and again in Pittsburgh that just having great players playing great hockey isn't enough. There needs to be a supporting cast, and there really isn't much of one in Washington. If it hasn't been one thing it's been another, and that's not likely to change soon, especially as Ovechkin ages into his 30s.

With age comes a diminishing of skills, because time erodes all. That probably means fewer shots per 60 minutes. Fewer goals. Maybe he's like Jarome Iginla, where if the wheels go, it doesn't matter, because he still has That Shot, so even if he's not potting 45-50 a year, he's still chipping in 25- or 30-plus. Even if there's a shift toward power play specialization. That seems like his talent level in a worst-case scenario, unless the wheels completely fall off.

So basically, if you've always thought Ovechkin was a bum, just wait a few more years, and you might finally be right. Because he'll be 33, and 33-year-olds aren't elite goalscorers or shot producers.

Man, Ovechkin sure will be a choker then! (Unless Washington frees some dead weight from the roster before then and brings in actual talented scoring forwards. In which case this team can win a Cup.)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY: