NHL Playoffs 2012: Is the Alex Ovechkin Legacy Made This Year?

When rating the best of all time, people have different criteria. Once you take your fan goggles off, and you have seen all of the replays and stats, it all becomes subjective. The most common yardstick by which to measure our heroes is championships.

While MVP trophies and individual accolades certainly look nice on the mantle, almost every athlete that never won a championship would trade a scoring title or an MVP trophy for a championship ring.

Alex Ovechkin is one of those athletes. Owning just about every individual award was enough for Ovechkin when he first burst upon the NHL scene. With youthful exuberance and sometimes ignorance, Ovechkin was a hurricane of fresh air into the NHL.

He was drafted with the No. 1 overall pick in 2004 but didn't play until 2005-06 because of the NHL lockout. As a rookie, he started filling the net and the trophy case while setting his share of individual records.

It was during his rookie season that Ovechkin's career would also begin the parallel to that of the 2005 No. 1 overall pick, Sidney Crosby. The downside to being a No. 1 draft pick is that you play for a terrible team.

The Capitals and Penguins were both non-competitive during the rookie season of their two stars. Both would compete for the scoring title and Calder trophy, with Ovechkin winning the Calder and the rookie scoring race.

As the Capitals began to surround him with talent, Ovechkin and the Capitals started putting together some winning seasons. With the improvement of the team came the expectations of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, the Penguins were building a contender of their own with the 2006 Calder Trophy winner, Evgeni Malkin. As the two former division rivals got better, the rivalry between Crosby and Ovechkin began to simmer. As the two tangled for the scoring title, the head to head matchups were becoming must-see TV.

The Penguins got to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008 and 2009 with Crosby lifting the Cup in 2009. Crosby would again take the spotlight in 2010, scoring the sudden-death "Golden goal" in the gold medal game against the United States. Ovechkin's Russian side did not make it to the medal round in the Olympics.

When Crosby went down in the 2011 Winter Classic, it paused the rivalry. With Crosby gone, Ovechkin had a chance to make his mark. With the defending Stanley Cup Champs eliminated in the playoffs, Ovechkin's Capitals could have made their run to the Stanley Cup. With the best record in the Eastern Conference the Caps couldn't get past the second round, getting swept by the fifth-seeded Tampa Bay Lightning.

Fast forward a year, and Ovechkin seemed to slump all year, perhaps lacking the fire from his rival's absence. The Penguins checked out early again this year, and Ovechkin found himself on stage again. This time, however, it was for all the wrong reasons. A public spat with coach Dale Hunter saw Ovechkin sitting on the bench during key parts of playoff games.

Hunter could point to using role players and grinders for situational play helped the team. Benching your captain and best player in spite of his defensive shortcomings in the playoffs bordered on lunacy, but the Capitals kept winning.

Ovechkin responded to the "benching" by making the absolute most of his ice time. In a career-low 13:36 minutes of Game 2 against the Rangers, Ovechkin fired a team high seven shots and got the game-winning goal. Message received? You'll have to ask Dale Hunter.

A fired up Ovechkin played 35 minutes in the Game 3 triple-overtime loss. Inches from another game-winner when he rang a shot off the post, Ovechkin seemed to be playing his best hockey at the right time of the year. His eight playoff points through the Capitals' first 12 games led the team, and the spat with Hunter seems to be over.

The Capitals forced another Game 7 with their victory on home ice tonight. Opening the scoring was their captain with a one-timed power play laser into the upper right-hand corner of Henrik Lundqvist's net.

As he dipped and dragged his glove across the Verizon center ice, the crowd roared its approval. The folly of the regular season a distant memory, Ovechkin skated towards his bench arms open wide, yelling almost as loud as the fans.

Whether Dale Hunter is the puppet master he appears to be won't be determined until the final horn in Game 7. For the time being, he has managed to re-ignite the fire in his star. The infectious, gap-toothed grin is a welcome sight to the Capitals faithful.

Their team will go only as far as Ovechkin will take them, and he seems like he is ready to take his place among the all-time greats.