Despite being minutes away from the match-up between the Oilers and the Capitals, some elements of the media are already diverting their attention to tomorrow’s Capitals-Penguins game.  It makes some measure of sense: last year’s Eastern Conference champions against this year’s most interesting team; Sidney Crosby versus Alexander Semin; Alexander Ovechkin versus Evgeni Malkin, and so on. What’s a shame is when the media has no idea what they’re talking about. For example, this article by the Associated Press’s Alan Robinson which I came across because it’s ESPN publication was linked to J.P.:

But the one-time friends [Ovechkin and Malkin] have become cold-as-ice rivals, and their on-ice feud has grown increasingly nasty. Last season, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Malkin ducked just in time to avoid a hard drive into the boards from the Washington Capitals’ Ovechkin.
[…]
Ovechkin’s defended his play by saying that he hits hard against every opponent, although he does not have a reputation among his fellow NHL players for regularly throwing his body around.

If that’s the case, the players’ opinions of Ovechkin must have changed an awful lot in the last couple years, when seven percent of players polled by ESPN said Ovechkin was the hardest hitter in the NHL. At seven percent only Dion Phanuef (43%), Zdeno Chara (11%), and Rob Blake (8%) received higher percentages of votes.

But maybe it isn’t about who Ovechkin finished behind, but who he finished ahead of. I mean, Robyn Regehr, Jordin Tootoo, Chris Neil, Eric Lindros, Brendan Witt, and Donald Brashear don’t really hit that hard, right?

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this writer to be familiar with the a player poll from 2007, would it? Of course not. But there’s not really any excuse for such a comment when numbers that blatantly contradict the assertion are so easily and readily available:

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2008-09
(1) D. Brown, 157
(2) M. Lucic, 154
(3) M. Cooke, 145
(4) C. Clutterbuck, 143
(5) A. Ovechkin, 138

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2007-08
(1) D. Brown, 311
(2) B. Morrow, 260
(3) T. Hunter, 256
(4) D. Backes, 240
(5) M. Fischer, 234
(6) A. Ovechkin, 220

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2006-07
(1) C. Neil, 288
(2) D. Brown, 258
(3) T. Hunter, 246
(4) C. Kilger, 234
(5) R. Hollweg, 231
(9) A. Ovechkin, 184

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2005-06
(1) B. Morrow, 234
(2) T. Hunter, 230
(3) C. Neil, 221
(4) S. Begin, 202
(5) S. Ott, 186
(7) A. Ovechkin, 172

Four years in the league; four years in the top ten in hits among forwards; four years in the top three percent among forwards in terms of hits.

Oops.

note: in addition to ESPN, this article has been picked up by The Hockey News, Yahoo! Sports, MSN, and Fox Sports.