Arguably even better was if Ovechkin was born a little earlier...I think he was just a few weeks shy of being eligible for the 2003 draft where PIT took Marc-Andre Fleury 1st overall. Imagine Ovi, Geno, and Sid in consecutive drafts! Granted no Fleury but we could have found another goalie.

What if Anaheim got first pick in 05

Geuntzel- Bobby Ryan - Ovi

I think Ryan is a winger though.

That would of been a sick powerplay line

And we also needed a goalie that time

Not really. Because if they have Ovechkin in 2003-04 they probably aren’t bad enough to get Geno, and the lottery balls don’t fall their way to get Crosby.

Debatable...but you never know...

Switch Guentzel with Boby Ryan

Not much debate. No season in between.

I'd move Ovi to 2L on this team. I think he'd work better with Staal than the little guys.

And I guess they wouldn’t have Fleury, so you never know. You couldn’t guarantee what would happen, since there are a bunch of little things that could go differently and have huge effects on the team.

Yah it is debatable but even tho in 03 we would of still picked flower we needed at goalie and we traded to get a first overall pick for that reason

If Ovechkin were 2 days older, there would be a season in between.

He can move up and down the line

what year was stall drafted

I wasn't as much focused on the lines as I was thinking what if Pitt ended up with Ryan over Crosby

??? who ever made that pick should get fired right away

Easy to say now, I just looked back at the 05 draft and I think a lot of teams would take a re-do if they could.

Wasn't it Florida who tried to draft Ovechkin in that Draft? Basically argued that if you ignored all the leap years since Ovi was born, he would have made the cutoff

Maybe Ovechkin would already have career 800G. Or maybe he'd struggle to find chemistry with Sid and/or Geno. Either way, I think things have worked out pretty well for both teams.

Damm your right now that I look back I think the same

Idk I have to go back and check

Side questions should I start doing these WHAT IF ‘s they get really interesting

Word Sid and ovi would of been domination

idk. You'll remember Pittsburgh ended up last overall but Washington won the lottery and moved from second to first. Had the Penguins traded Jagr
to the Caps for their 2004 1st round pick instead of Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk and Michal Sivek in July of 2001 they would have had both Ovechkin
and Malkin and remained in the lottery mix for Crosby in 2005 (due to the lockout).

The penguins are arguably the team who was effected the worst by the salary cap.
They had the young talent to win a ton of cups and it wasn't even close with everyone else.
The NHL basically stole a dynasty from the penguins so the rest of the league could live.
Those are pretty much the facts. After FA tore this team apart it took like 10 years for them to get to the cup again. But they were clearly heads and shoulders above everyone else prior to the cap stealing the team of young talent.
Which is exactly what would have happened here. The reason they got rid of Staal is they couldn't afford to pay him. You pay OV....no Staal money.

2006...a draft were I wanted the Pens to take Backstrom....they could have taken Toews
Staal was good, but man could imagine Sid/Geno/Backstrom down the middle?

Not entirely true, the Pens offered Staal a 10 year deal worth $60 mil, he turned it down....same contract he signed with Car. He just wanted to play with his brother and play a bigger role.