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Where the NHL screwed up marketing Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin

November 16, 2016, 2:02 PM ET [76 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
I saw a tweet yesterday that piqued my interest



I think this is an unfortunate way to look at it. The NHL currently does a terrible job of marketing individuals in their sport and it is a huge reason why the games are less entertaining and the general public is less interested in hockey than with other sports. The NHL goes out of their way to bog the game down with interference and other infractions which strips away the ability for individuals to impact the game at even-strength. This approach is void of any sort of logic.

The league may have overdone the Sid vs. Ovie angle, but that is because they did it as one player versus another. What they should have been doing is marketing the individual players on their own merit and not against one another. The NHL absolutely should have been marketing both of those players, but why pit them against one another? What about when they aren’t playing against each other? They are still awesome, but the general public/casual fan was led to believe it only mattered when the played each other. That was the mistake, not promotion of individual players.

When you market teams what happens when they aren’t playing that night? How many teams are even interesting enough to market? Does anybody really buy into the whole "Rivalry Night"?

When you properly market individuals the league is relevant every single night of the week.

Here is to hoping the NHL shifts away from this team approach nonsense and goes back to focusing on marketing the excellent players in the league and actually allows them to do the cool things they are capable of when not being bear hugged.

Speaking of Sid and Ovie…

So far this season Sidney Crosby has what I would consider an Alexander Ovechkin stat line. He has ten goals and only three assists in nine games played. That is an 82 game pace of 91 goals and one that will not be sustained by the Penguins captain. It does highlight how well Crosby has started the year though.

Alexander Ovechkin has seven goals in 15 games and that projects out to 38 goals over 82 games. This is somewhat disappointing because Ovechkin has been one of the few players able to hit the 50 goal mark and if he can’t do it, who can? Says a lot about the state of the league.

The goaltending matchup will be the same as it was in the playoffs. It will be Matt Murray against Braden Holtby. The defending Stanley Cup champion starting goaltender versus the reigning Vezina winning goaltender. Since Matt Murray has returned to the lineup he has started five out of the last seven games. Some of this is probably the team letting Fleury rest after playing literally every single game before Murray’s return, but this can also be read as the Penguins giving Matt Murray the 1a title and Fleury 1b. Murray has played really well since returning.



I’ve marked Murray, Fleury, and Holtby with red dots. Murray is among the best in the NHL in his limited four game sample.

Tom Sestito left the ice early during the morning skate and looks to be playing this evening. That would leave both Tom Kuhnhackl and Scott Wilson without a roster spot tonight per Jason Mackey. Considering the Penguins have been off since Saturday I find the choice weird and void of logic. I’m not sure why the coaching staff keeps going in this direction. This won’t stop Tom Wilson from playing his style of game and is likelier to encourage Tom Wilson to do more. I will give Sestito credit though, his Phil Kessel for President t-shirt was funny.

Here is how the two teams have done with their ability to generate and prevent shots so far this year at even-strength



The Penguins are playing high event hockey and it has been entertaining. It has also been successful. The Capitals are a top ten team in shot generation, but they have been really impressive on the shot suppression front which may surprise some people. Pittsburgh will have to be on their game to generate offensive chances this evening.

Here is the matchup




Thanks for reading!
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