When the Washington Capitals beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday, the team not only put itself in a Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1998 — and just the second time in franchise history — but it got the team’s star, Alex Ovechkin, off the hook. He is no longer the greatest player in N.H.L. history not to get to the league finals.
Ovechkin, 32, has never lacked for personal achievements in his 13-year career. He has led the N.H.L. in goals seven times and in points once. He is a seven-time All-Star who has won the Calder and Hart Memorial trophies along with the Ted Lindsay Award. But despite making the playoffs 10 times, his teams had been unable to break through until now.
A look around the sporting world reveals a talented group of players who, despite being top-tier Hall of Famers, not only did not win a title, but never even played for one. The group will now say goodbye to Ovechkin, while people are free to debate who should take his place among a group of standout N.H.L. performers that includes Marcel Dionne, Mike Gartner and Peter Stastny.
Here are some of the best to never reach the finals in other sports:
N.F.L.
Barry Sanders
There was a time when the simple act of tackling Sanders seemed impossible. The diminutive running back for the Detroit Lions rushed for 15,269 yards in his 10-year career, leading the league in the category four times, including the 1997 season when he challenged the single-season rushing record with 2,053 yards. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in each season of his career and retired with many believing that he had far more good football left in him. But his teams qualified for the postseason in only five of his 10 seasons, and he won just one playoff game.
Who else? The easiest cases to make are for Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback, and Deacon Jones, the Hall of Fame defensive end, but among others, the list of players to never make a Super Bowl includes four of Sanders’ peers as great running backs: O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, Eric Dickerson and LaDainian Tomlinson.
M.L.B.
Ken Griffey Jr.
He burst onto the scene in 1989 as a 19-year-old with a big smile, a backward cap and one of the prettiest left-handed swings anyone had ever seen. He would go on to produce 630 home runs, 1,836 R.B.I. and 2,781 hits. He was named an All-Star 13 times, won the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1997 and received more than 99 percent of the vote in his first year of Hall of Fame eligibility. But Griffey made it to the playoffs only three times in 22 seasons and made it out of the first round just once.
Who else? Ernie Banks is the baseball player most often cited for greatness that came without a championship, but as his Chicago Cubs never qualified for postseason play, he is not quite as analogous to Ovechkin as Griffey and others. The list of accomplished players to not play in a World Series also includes the Hall of Famers Frank Thomas, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, Gaylord Perry, Rod Carew, Andre Dawson and George Sisler.
N.B.A.
Steve Nash
A very good player in his time with Dallas Mavericks, Steve Nash seemed to almost reinvent the game of basketball when he was paired with Coach Mike D’Antoni on the Phoenix Suns. As the head of the “7 Seconds or Less” offense, Nash won consecutive Most Valuable Player Awards, and he finished his career having led the N.B.A. in assists per game five times, having been named an All-Star eight times, and having achieved the rare shooting distinction of a 50/40/90 season a record-setting four times (no other player has done it more than twice). The Suns made it to the Western Conference finals three times, twice stretching the series to six games, but they never reached the N.B.A. finals, leaving Nash’s teams empty in 12 trips to the postseason. Meanwhile, his old friend in Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki, finally won a title seven years after Nash left.
Who else? George Gervin, the electric scorer in the 1970s who came to be known as the Ice Man, could easily make a claim that he deserves the title more than Nash, with his 12 All-Star appearances, 13 trips to the playoffs and four scoring titles. He would have company with all-time greats like Dominique Wilkins, Pete Maravich, Alex English, Chris Webber, Grant Hill and Bernard King.
Soccer
George Weah
The only African player honored as soccer’s world player of the year, Liberia’s Weah was a dominant player for Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain and A.C. Milan in the 1990s. Fast and powerful, but also blessed with remarkable instincts and technical ability, he was considered one of the dominant strikers of his generation. But despite being the top scorer in the 1994-95 Champions League, Weah never appeared in the final of the competition: the closest he came was a run to the semifinals with Paris Saint-Germain in 1995. P.S.G. lost to Milan that spring, and Weah joined the Italian champions later that year, but he never again advanced past the group stage. Still, while he never won a title as a player, he has proved capable of winning elections: Weah became president of Liberia earlier this year.
W.N.B.A.
Tina Charles
The individual accolades keep coming for Charles. She was the W.N.B.A.’s Rookie of the Year in 2010, and was its M.V.P. in 2012, and in her nine seasons with the Connecticut Sun and the Liberty she has been named an All-Star five times. She has lofty career averages of 20 points and 11.1 rebounds a game — once leading the league in scoring and four times leading the league in rebounding — and she has made the All-Defense team four times. Her college career at Connecticut came with almost unending success, and two national titles, and she has won titles in Europe too. In the W.N.B.A., she has qualified for postseason play in five of her nine seasons, but her Liberty lost to the Indiana Fever in a three-game Eastern Conference finals in 2015. With the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks continuing to dominate the league, Charles may struggle to get an opportunity to play in a finals.
Who else? Unfortunately, the W.N.B.A. came along too late in the careers of Nancy Lieberman and Cheryl Miller for either of those Hall of Famers to get a shot at the title. Lieberman did qualify for the playoffs as a player in 1997 with the Phoenix Mercury, but her team lost in the first round. Her coach: Miller.
Source : NYtimes
