Pittsburgh Penguins' captain Sidney Crosby and Washington Capitals' captain Alex Ovechkin have been the NHL's most marketable stars for the past 21 years, and if this is the final chapter in their unparalleled rivalry, there are plenty of stats to look back on.
Yes, it's quite difficult to believe that the rivalry between captain Sidney Crosby and captain Alex Ovechkin has been going strong for 21 years.
And what’s even harder to believe is that it may soon be coming to an end.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins' and Washington Capitals' legends met for the first time in 2005, smart phones were not yet invented. Penguins' rookie Ben Kindel was not even born yet. And "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey, "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani, and "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson were dominating the airwaves.
1,700 points and 900 goals later, the rivalry is still going strong, even if it's different. In celebration of their 75th regular season matchup and 100th overall game against one another - and, potentially, their last - here are 21 stats and factoids for the 21 years of the Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry, with stats provided by Hockey Reference, Quant Hockey, and StatMuse:
1. On Nov. 22, 2005, Crosby and Ovechkin faced off for the very first time, and Crosby got the better of the night individually with a goal and two points, while Ovechkin registered an assist. Crosby's team also got the win, as he teamed up with Zigmund Palffy on both goals en route to a 5-4 victory.
2. Feb. 3, 2007 - in both players' sophomore seasons and in their sixth matchup against one another - was the first game in which Crosby and Ovechkin were both held pointless in a 2-0 Pittsburgh win.
3. A year after Crosby won his first Hart Trophy as league MVP, Ovechkin won his first in 2007-08 with a standout 65-goal, 112-point campaign. It was the first and only time Ovechkin has hit the 60-goal mark in his career.
4. In a seven-game series that featured matching hat tricks by Crosby and Ovechkin in Round Two, Game Two of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the two squared off in the playoffs for the very first time. Ovechkin had the slight edge in points with eight goals and 14 points to Crosby's nine goals and 13 points - but Crosby got the last laugh, as the Penguins won the series and went on to win the franchise's third Stanley Cup - and Crosby's first.
5. It took until Ovechkin's fifth NHL season to outscore Crosby in head-to-head matchups during a season, when Ovechkin registered 10 points to Crosby's seven in four games played. And they finished with a near-identical stat line in 2009-10, as Crosby had 51 goals and 109 points and Ovechkin finished with 50 goals and 109 points - even if it took Ovechkin nine less games to do it.
6. Despite Crosby playing in only 41 games that season due to a concussion suffered against the Caps during the WInter Classic, he finished 2010-11 with 32 goals - the same number as Ovechkin in 79 games. Ovechkin finished with a career-low 8.7 shooting percentage that season.
7. The two only squared off once in 2011-12, which was on Dec. 1, 2011 - a 2-1 victory for the Penguins. Neither player recorded a point in the affair.
8. Crosby again got bit by the injury bug during the 2012-13 season with a broken jaw and missed the season's final 12 games, ending his campaign with 56 points and leading the scoring race until the final day of the season. Ovechkin went on to win his third Hart Trophy with 32 goals and 56 points - again tying Crosby in points; except, this time, Crosby was the one who played 12 less games.
9. Crosby dominated the head-to-head in 2013-14, registering three goals and seven points to Ovechkin's one goal in four matchups. Crosby secured his second Hart that season.
10. 2014-15 was a weird season for the NHL, as its leading scorer - Jamie Benn - finished the full 82-game season with 87 points. Crosby and Ovechkin both felt the effects, as they finished with 85 and 81 points, respectively.
11. In 2016, the Penguins and Capitals met for the first time in the playoffs since 2009. Ovechkin got the better of Crosby in that entire series with two goals and seven points, while Crosby had just two assists in six games - but the Penguins, again, went all the way that season.
12. Aside from the Penguins beating the Capitals en route to a second-consecutive Cup, there was a crazy, back-and-forth, track meet-type game on Jan. 16, 2017, when the Penguins won 8-7 in overtime. Crosby amassed four points and was a plus-3, while Ovechkin had two assists and was a minus-4. Ovechkin also recorded his 1,000th NHL point against the Penguins on Jan. 11 that season.
13. 2018 was finally the Caps' year against the Pens in the playoffs - and it's the last time the two teams have faced off in the playoffs. Crosby and Ovechkin had a pretty even series stats-wise (3G-8A for Crosby, 3G-7A for Ovi), but Crosby was on the ice to witness Evgeny Kuznetsov's series-clinching OT goal in Game 6 - with the assist from Ovechkin - that sent the Caps to the Eastern Conference Final and, eventually, to Ovechkin's first and only Cup.
14. Ovechkin finished the 2018-19 season with 51 goals, capturing his eighth Maurice Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal-scorer. Crosby finished the season with 35 goals and 100 points - the last time Crosby hit the 100-point plateau.
15. In the first of two COVID-19-shortened seasons in 2019-20, Ovechkin was held pointless - while Crosby had two goals and four points in three games - in three matchups between the teams that all took place shortly before the league shutdown.
16. Although it was another COVID-19-shortened season for the NHL, and divisions were all out of whack. Not only did Crosby and Ovechkin finish with the same number of goals at 24 (Crosby finished with 20 more points at 62), the Penguins and Capitals also tied points-wise (77) at the top of MassMutual East Division - and they also finished with the same number of regulation wins (29). So, the Penguins won the second tiebreaker - regulation plus overtime wins - as they had 34 to the Caps’ 33.
17. During the 2021-22 season, there was only one goal scored between the two of them in their four head-to-head matchups that season, which was an Ovechkin goal in a 6-3 Capitals’ win on Apr. 9. Ovechkin was a plus-2 in those matchups, while Crosby was a minus-5.
18. The 2022-23 season marked the first time both the Penguins and the Capitals had missed the playoffs since the 2005-06 season, when they were the two worst teams in the Eastern Conference. 11 points separated the two teams in 2022-23, and the Penguins missed the postseason by one point.
19. Ovechkin finished the 2023-24 season with 272 shots on goal, while Crosby finished with 278. It’s the only season across both players’ careers where Crosby finished with more shots on goal than Ovechkin, with Ovechkin playing in only three less games.
20. The 2024-25 season was an historic one, as both players broke major records set by The Great One. Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky’s longstanding goal record of 894, while Crosby broke Gretzky’s point-per-game seasons record of 20.
21. Ovechkin and Crosby faced each other twice, with Crosby recording two goals and Ovechkin a goal and three points. They will end the season as the second-oldest (40) and seventh-oldest (38) players in the NHL, respectively, with Colorado Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns being the oldest (41). Burns is the only remaining NHL player to have played in the pre-lockout NHL (2003-04), before Ovechkin and Crosby were drafted.
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