Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Can Alex Ovechkin lead the young Capitals to Stanley Cup glory this year?

Pressure is building on some NHL stars to emulate their regular-season success when it counts.

There's a good chance Alexander Ovechkin will win a third-straight Rocket Richard Trophy and he just may lead the NHL in scoring for the second time in his splendid five-year big-league career.

So it's safe to see he's one of the best players, if not the very best, in the NHL.

Like duh.

But when the playoffs roll around next week, all of Ovechkin's individual achievements will be put aside temporarily and all that matters is this: Is he a winner?

Let's be honest, with his nemesis Sidney Crosby having won both the Stanley Cup and the gold medal at the Winter Olympics this year in Vancouver, the pressure for Ovechkin to win something has been ratcheted up. Ovechkin and Crosby will be fairly or unfairly tied together throughout their careers having broken into the NHL the same season and, of course, being in a neck-in-neck race for who is best player in the league.

Certainly, the Capitals being knocked out of the playoffs before the Stanley Cup final will not be a career-defining moment for the 24-year-old Ovechkin, but with Washington finishing with the best record in the regular season, and having been knocked out of the playoffs a year ago by Crosby's Stanley Cup-winning Pens, the stakes are higher now. Winning the Cup would go a long way toward cementing Ovechkin's developing reputation as one of the best players in the history of the game.

Of course he can't do it on his own. Ovechkin has been a scoring stud in his first two playoff appearances in the league, producing 15 goals and 30 points in 21 games, but his team is 10-11 and has only won a single round. At this time of year, winning is all that counts.

Ovechkin is surrounded by a supremely-talented supporting cast. Mike Green has an excellent shot at winning the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenceman while Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin are legitimate scoring threats in their own right. The biggest hurdle facing the Capitals is keeping the puck out of their net. With two games remaining they rank 17 in goals-against average.

Sadly, there's nothing Ovechkin can do about this. And yet, it is safe to say the pressure is on for The Gr8 One to carry his team to the promise land. And he's not alone.

Here are four other players who will be feeling the heat with the playoffs arrive:

Joe Thornton, San Jose Sharks -- I was tempted to simply re-publish what was written about Big Joe last year… or the year before… or the year before that. Thornton, 30, is equal parts one of the most universally-liked players in the league and one of the most frustrating cases of a star who has not been able to push his team over the hump. Even as recently as the Olympics, when he was part of Team Canada's gold medal entry, he was dissed as Canada's poorest performer.

There is incredible pressure on the Sharks to go deep into this year's playoffs and there are some who would suggest nothing short of winning the Cup will be enough to keep this group of players together. Yet even though the Sharks will finish second or third overall, they don't give off a warm fuzzy feeling that they are capable of winning it all.

Thornton will finish among the NHL's top-10 scorers for the third time in the last four years, but his average of .98 points per game in the regular season takes a dip to .70 in the playoffs. Time is running out for Thornton to add the term 'winner' to his otherwise splendid resume.

Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils -- Before you get too excited about Brodeur's inclusion on the list, it is obvious he has already cemented his place in history as one of the best goaltenders - players, for that matter - in league history. Nothing he could do on the ice will change that.

Yet, back-to-back, first-round eliminations in the playoffs by the Devils has some people wondering if Brodeur still has what it takes to lead the Devils to the Stanley Cup. If we're being honest here, his one-game flop in the Olympics did nothing to alter the notion that Brodeur's game is slipping when it counts the most.

With the Eastern Conference wide open, the expectations are high in New Jersey that the Devils will go deep into the post-season. For that to happen, Brodeur must be able to translate his great regular season success into more playoff magic.

Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks: Here's a thought: Did winning the gold medal at the Winter Olympics ease the pressure Luongo will feel in this year's playoffs or add to it? Long considered one of the best stoppers in the NHL, Luongo's teams have never made it beyond the second round. In fact, when we last saw him in the playoffs, he was skating off the ice following a humiliating 7-5 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in an elimination game.

As well as he has played at times throughout this season, there have been plenty - too many, in fact - nights when Luongo has not been reliable. The Canucks have tremendous team speed and a wealth of scoring, but their defence is thin which means Luongo will be asked to help them out of jams in the playoffs. For Vancouver to be a playoff success, he needs to be his team's best player.

Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose Sharks: Thornton isn't the only member of the Sharks who will be feeling the heat next week. Another example of a great regular season player whose recent performance took a dip in the playoffs, Nabokov added to his dwindling reputation with an awful performance at the Olympics. Put that together with last season's first-round defeat and you can understand why Sharks fans are sitting on pins and needles heading into this year's playoffs.