from Stephen Whyno of the Washington Times,

It wasn’t long after an onslaught of criticism for Alex Ovechkin by Mike Milbury, Jeremy Roenick, Pierre McGuire and P.J. Stock that Sirius-XM NHL Network analyst Jim “Boomer” Gordon made an astute comparison. When Puck the Media’s Steve Lepore asked if there was any athlete in another sport who gets as abused as Ovechkin, Gordon mentioned Alex Rodriguez.

Gordon called Ovechkin the “A-Rod of the NHL.”

“Once you become a punching bag, you have no shot,” he said.

Ovechkin does seem to take a lot of outside hits, some fair some unwarranted.

“I don’t want to compare me and Rodriguez,” he said. “But if I do something wrong of course I’m going to be [talked about] if I do something bad. If I do something good they still will talk about me. It’s kind of position what I’m in.”

continued