If there was any doubt whether Alex Ovechkin has a historically great shot, just check out what his NHL peers think.
More than 50 percent of the league voted Ovechkin as having the best shot in the NHL, according to a poll conducted by the NHL Players’ Association released Wednesday.
Ovechkin won 50.2 percent of 486 total votes for that question. The player that came in second, Montreal’s Shea Weber, earned just 14.6 percent.
.@ovi8, over 500 NHL players took part in the 2018-19 #NHLPAPlayerPoll and your peers voted your shot as the best in the league. Congratulations! pic.twitter.com/0Rwn9vJz8F
— NHLPA (@NHLPA) March 20, 2019
It’s hard to argue with results. Ovechkin won last year’s Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy for leading the league in goals (49), and he’s on pace to win his eighth such title this season with an NHL-high 48 goals and counting. (No other player has won that title more than three times.)
A few other Capitals appeared in the poll. Nicklas Backstrom, who was voted the league’s most underrated player last season, came in second in the same category this year behind Florida’s Aleksander Barkov. Evgeny Kuznetsov came in fourth in the underrated category, as well.
And 4.5 percent of respondents apparently think Brooks Orpik would make the best NHL general manager after he retires, good for third in that category.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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