Malkin vs. Ovechkin...Behind the Numbers

Numbers. I am going to once again get nerdy on you. I was reviewing some stats and came up with some interesting numbers concerning Evgeni Malkin's domination of Alex Ovechkin. I said I was going to put something together showing this, so here it is. I started digging into some statistics concerning both these "superstars" and was not as much surprised, but confirmed in my beliefs. I was reading an Eklund blog on HockeyBuzz.com and was shocked at all the blind fans there are in the NHL. The post involved naming the best player in the NHL. Eklund himself said he thought it was Ovechkin, so did a ton of fans. Apparently scoring goals makes you the best in alot of eyes, but I like seeing how complete a player is, defensively, offensively, and on special teams is the sign of the best.

Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P	+/-	ESP	SHP	PPP	HmP	RdP	DvP	ODvP	P/G
Evgeni Malkin	PIT	C	71	30	67	97	18	63	2	32	44	53	24	73	1.37
Alex Ovechkin	WAS	L	67	49	40	89	10	50	1	38	49	40	27	62	1.33

Player	Hits	MsS	GvA	TkA	FOW	FOL	Tot	FO%	%Tm	Shots	S%	S/G
Evgeni Malkin	67	98	73	85	241	329	570	42.3%	13.8%	259	11.6%	3.6
Alex Ovechkin	219	178	96	55	4	12	16	25%	0.4%	443	11.1%	6.6

Player	Even Strength:	G	A	P	Power Play:	G	A	P	Shorthanded:	G	A	P	GW	OT
Evgeni Malkin		17	46	63		11	21	32		2	0	2	3	2
Alex Ovechkin		32	18	50		16	22	38		1	0	1	10	2

I know numbers can sometimes be overwhelming, but I will try my best to break it down some. Malkin does lead Ovechkin in the points race. He has also played in four more games, but that doesn't mean that Ovechkin is playing any better than Malkin because Ovechkin's point per game average is .04 lower than Malkin's.

Another thing that really stuck out to me is in the shots category. Malkin has 259 to Ovechkin's 443. That is a significant difference, but it gets worse, Ovechkin has 178 missed shots to 98 of Malkin. This tells me that Ovechkin has shot the puck 621 times in 67 games and Malkin has shot the puck 357 times in 71 games. This is significant because Ovechkin only has 19 more goals than Malkin. Could you imagine if Malkin shot as much as Ovechkin does? If Malkin took 443 shots this season, he would have 51 goals to Ovechkins 49, based on the average numbers. This would give him 118 points already. He would be blowing away the competition.

I don't know if this is a negative of a positive, but Ovechkin outhits Malkin 219 to 67.

Another category that caught my eye was in the giveaway/takeaway category. Malkin has a league leading 85 takeaways and Ovechkin has the league leading 96 giveaways. I find this very impressive. It shows who is smarter with the puck and isn't careless.

Another aspect of Malkin's game that he is still working on that Ovechkin doesn't even have to worry about is faceoffs. Malkin takes 13.8% of the teams faceoffs and Ovechkin takes 0.04% of his teams'. This tells me that while Malkin has another aspect to learn, Ovechkin only has to worry about shooting the puck.

One more minor detail is that Malkin scores more at even strength than Ovechkin does and Ovechkin scores more on the power play than Malkin. That tells me that Malkin can score even when he has a defender on him, unlike Ovechkin.

The rest of their statistics comes out about even, however I think that Malkin's statistics proves that he is definitely the better and more complete player.