“Clash of the Legends: How Gretzky’s Grace and Ovechkin’s Power Redefine Greatness in the NHL”
Trying to stop Ovechkin the machine and Gretzky over his career that overlapped theirs, Mike Grier acknowledged one was a physical battle and the other more mental.
Gretzky, Lemieux and their ilk were always thinking two steps ahead, while Ovechkin was two steps from laying out a big hit or sniping a shot into the top corner.
“It was kind of a different job when you checked them versus someone like Ovechkin,” said Grier, now general manager of the San Jose Sharks. “Ovi, you have an idea where he’s going to be and he’ll engage in the physical game with you a little bit. I think that sometimes gets him going. But that was the challenge: He could physically take over games and be hard on you and your defensemen, but I think Wayne and those guys, they were just so smart that you think you had a lane covered or something and they’d find the next option.”
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