Alexander Not So Great...

Throughout the first round series between the President's Trophy (highest regular season point total) winning Washington Capitals and the eighth seed Montreal Canadiens one thing really stuck out to me in respect to Alexander Ovechkin; he is NOT the best player in the world. Personally, I do not know how anyone can argue he is.
What makes great players great? A question for the ages which always boils down to one thing: Championships. Mr. Ovechkin has not won anything in the NHL other than personal, regular season awards. This past February he had a chance to lead the talented Russian national team to Olympic glory, but that ship crashed and burned before even leaving the boat yard, but that is for another day.
So let me get this straight... The best team in the league, with the supposed best player, headed home for game 5 with a 3-1 series lead in a best of 7 and five days later they are out of the play offs?! Whaaat?!?!
Capitals fans will point to the fact that Jaroslav Halak, the Canadiens goaltender, stood on his head for the final three games of the series. Halak is a professional goaltender and is in the rubber stopping business. He did his job. Quit pointing the finger and look at your main man, Ovechkin.
When teams are up against it and they need something special to turn their fortunes around, they turn to their leader. Alexander Ovechkin is the unquestioned leader of the Washington Capitals. I do not care if Halak was guarding a goal 1' by 1' you find a way to beat him because that is your job as the leader of your team. You do the impossible and rally your teammates around you. That is why you are the highest paid player in the NHL. If your shot is not finding its way to the back of the net through your finesse, then you get dirty and scrum it up in the corners and in front of the net and do absolutely everything you can to make a difference. Ovechkin did not do this. He floated most of the time, waiting for others to get him the puck in his preferred spots and then got his shots blocked because the Canadiens are smarter than a bunch of 10 year olds playing hockey and they knew what was up. The Capitals, despite their 134 shots over the final 3 games played just how Montreal wanted them to.
A powerplay spearheaded by Ovechkin went 1 for 33 in the series. The highest scoring team in the Eastern conference was predictable offensively, hence the high number of blocked shots for the Canadiens. The Capitals all began to play like their Captain and failed to move the puck east to west and became very predictable and individualistic.
The fact is the Capitals had 3 chances to finish the pesky Canadiens, twice in the own arena, and failed to do so. They scored 3 goals in the final 3 games. Ovechkin was MIA. His record now stands at 1-3 in the deciding game 7. Great players play great under pressure and a win percentage of 25% in such crucial games is not going to cut it.
Before people start anointing him the next Great One and face of the NHL, it is high time Ovechkin won some trophies that matter. I am not talking about the individual scoring trophies from the regular season, which he has a nice collection brewing, but rather I am talking about Stanley Cups and Olympic medals. Greatness is defined by championships. Just ask Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Or Joe Thornton...