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Roundtable: Predictions for Ovechkin in 2011-12

After Alex Ovechkin posted several career lows last season, it became obvious that Capitals Outsider needs to get out of the prediction business. We thought he’d have his best overall season in 2010-11, but all we got right was that Ovie would flash the HBO cameras (and that only sort of happened). As for the numbers? We were way off, except for short-handed goals which we nailed. Ovie had zero. Yeah, we’re the Amazing Kreskin of Caps bloggers.

So instead of embarrassing ourselves at the end of the 2011-12 season when we revisit our predictions, we’ll ridicule and mock the predictions of a carefully-selected group of people (unless they nail it). The victims panelists are Washington Caps Examiner’s Michael Hoffman, D.C. Sports Box’s Abram Fox, Caps News Network‘s Dave Nichols, Kings of Leonsis’s Adam Vingan and our Fansided brother, Jacob Ware of DC Pro Sports Report. Blogger extraordinaire Neil Greenberg politely declined so he could write about it himself, but be warned that his article is filled with logical arguments and math.

Here are the numbers our panelists picked, along with Ovie’s stats from last year for comparison. We will revisit these at the end of the season to see just how off these guys are.

Last Season Fox Nichols Hoffman Vingan Ware
Games 79 68 76 69 78 80
Goals 32 41 48 39 45 50
Assists 53 56 55 50 55 55
Points 85 97 103 89 100 105
Plus/minus 24 29 32 17 37 40
PIMs 41 46 38 52 75 80
Hits 241 219 258 213 260 250
Blocks 23 12 18 18 20 30
SHG 0 1 0 2 0 0
Shots 367 372 405 350 395 366
GW 11 9 10 6 10 12
PPG 7 17 16 12 13 15
PPA 17 13 14 16 15 20
Hart nom? No No Yes Yes Yes Yes

But wait! There’s more. Ovechkin is certain to have several offbeat good and/or bad things happen.

Fox: He’ll regret his decision to switch to Easton and go back to CCM sticks. He will receive at least four wedding propositions and two invitations to escort an area high school student to prom.  He’ll accept the first prom invitation, but then have to renege when the Caps are actually still in the playoffs. He’ll pull a Rob Schremp move in a shootout in a meaningless December game and gets eviscerated for it in the Canadian media.  A month later a Canadian player does the same move and its celebrated on the front page of tsn.ca.

Caps Outsider responds: Rob Schremp move = awesome. Let’s hope it happens.

Nichols: He’ll break/knock out a glass panel jumping into it on a goal against the Penguins.

Caps Outsider responds: Let’s hope this happens after he scores the game-winning buzzer-beater so we don’t need to wait around as they fix it.

Hoffman: A shoulder injury will keep Alex out for a month, to a month and a half. Alex will start the season slow, but go on a tear toward the end of the season.

Caps Outsider responds: That’s not offbeat at all (incidentally, Hoffman also predicts that the Caps will win the Stanley Cup.)

Vingan: To show everybody that he is in shape once and for all after being criticized all summer, his “Hot Stick” celebration of the year will be Ovechkin lifting up his shirt and counting the number of goals he has on the season on his abs.

Caps Outsider responds: Would prefer that Ovechkin break the plexiglass during a goal celebration.

Ware: Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have always been good friends. It’s just the media that say they hate each other. This is the year their friendship comes into light and all these rumours about fights/whatever will disappear forever.

Caps Outsider responds: It’s spelled ‘rumors’ here.

Ben Sumner

Ben Sumner is the editor of Capitals Outsider. He also works for The Washington Post and contributes there when he gets a scoop.

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