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Survey of ‘self-identified hockey fans’ from US shows Sidney Crosby as most favorable player, Alex Ovechkin finishes sixth

By Chris Cerullo

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October 5, 2022 4:39 pm

Morning Consult, a “global decision intelligence company”, released a survey on Tuesday that they conducted with 2,210 American adults, including 851 self-identified NHL fans. Respondents were shown a combination of NHL players and told to give each a “favorability” rating.

We’re guessing many of those fans were not Capitals fans as Sidney Crosby finished as the most favorable player among the group shown.

It was not specified exactly how many players were shown in the survey but the company released the top 24 “most popular” players based on their data. Crosby tops the list at 49 percent favorability.

The Caps did have three representatives in the top 24 with captain Alex Ovechkin finishing tied for sixth at 40 percent with teammate TJ Oshie. Nicklas Backstrom made the list, tying with Matthew Tkachuk, John Tavares, and bizarrely Evander Kane at 37 percent.

Connor McDavid, the league’s clear number one player, finished tied at the bottom with names like Patrice Bergeron, Jack Hughes, Johnny Gaudreau, Cale Makar, Matt Duchene, Filip Forsberg, and Phil Kessel. That is perhaps not an indicator of anything McDavid has done himself bar being rather boring and is more of a tell of how poorly the NHL markets the current generation of stars.

Respondents also were tasked to rank teams based on how interested they are in following them.

The Caps finished tied for 11th there while the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, and Pittsburgh Penguins took the top spot. Those results combined with the results of the previous data beg the question of just how many people in Pennsylvania were a part of this survey.

Headline photo: @CapitalsPR

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