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Bleacher Report
They make up one of the NHL’s legendary player rivalries.
Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.
They came into the league a year apart as No. 1 overall picks, are its active leaders in goals and points, respectively, and they’ve met in the playoffs four times–with each of those series won by the team that ultimately went on to hoist the Stanley Cup.
These days, though, they’re traveling in opposite directions.
Ovechkin and his Washington Capitals are off to a surprisingly strong start after the season’s first couple of weeks, and the 39-year-old is fewer than 40 flashing red lights away from becoming the league’s all-time leader in goals. Meanwhile, Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins won just three of their first 11 games and reached Halloween far closer to the league’s cob-webbed basement than to the elite air of its penthouse.
The B/R hockey staff took the pulse of the Caps, the Pens and all the rest while fulfilling its weekly Power Rankings duty, casting ballots that awarded 32 points for a first-place vote all the way down to a single point for a No. 32 position.