Postseason play is not being kind to Alex Ovechkin. Just weeks after his Washington Capitals were unceremoniously dumped from the 2011 NHL Playoffs, his Team Russia squad lost Sunday in the bronze medal game of the IIHF World Hockey Championship, 7-4 to the Czech Republic. Making matters even worse for the star Russian, he managed zero goals and zero assists in the five tournament games. Doing some quick math, I believe that is zero points for Ovi in five games. He did manage to still get off 23 shots though, good for second on the team to Ilya Kovalchuk. At least Kovalchuk was kind enough to score two goals in the bronze medal game loss.
The game was a rematch of last year's championship game, won by the Czechs 2-1. The Czech Republic earned their fourth bronze medal at the worlds, keeping Russia from a medal for the first time since 2006.
Disappointment seems to be following Ovi around this Spring. I was happy to see the Russian coached chimed in on this, as this is the same guy who basically said Alexander Semin stunk, so he didn't want him on the national team, and here he is passive-aggressively telling Ovi he stunk too.
"All the players went for a victory and were fighting until the end," Russia coach Vyacheslav Bykov said. "But this was not a good tournament for us. "I'm sure (Ovechkin) was not satisfied with his performance. But he's not the only one to blame."
As an aside, it appears if anyone wants a soft, selfish scorer who is allergic to defense, Jaromir Jagr wants back in to the National Hockey League. Good luck with that, comrade.