So add Alex Ovechkin to the list of walking wounded in the Caps’ dressing room. His name is the biggest, of course, but joins Mike Green (head injury), Jason Arnott (undisclosed), Tom Poti (groin), Eric Fehr (shoulder) etc. The team wants Ovechkin to take time to heal from an assortment of bumps and bruises. It’s probably a smart move. But Washington’s Eastern Conference opponents would break out the tiny violins if they heard anyone at Kettler Iceplex complaining.
“In a perfect world you’d love everybody to be healthy all the time. But I look through every team’s lineup and every team has injuries of major players,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. “You can look at the Rangers have [Marc] Staal out and [Chris] Drury out, Pittsburgh’s got [Brooks] Orpik out and [Evgeni] Malkin out and [Sidney] Crosby out. Montreal has – off and on – all their defensemen out. In a perfect world we’d all be healthy. But it’s not and that’s what the playoffs are about and the end of the season is about.”
Ovechkin did endure a knee-on-knee collision during last Wednesday’s Detroit game and was slow to get up off the ice. He looked fine during the New Jersey game two days later. Boudreau scoffed when the Red Wings collision was mentioned. He said Ovechkin has dealt with “some nagging injuries” for a while now – remember he had a cortisone injection in his upper-body in early January – and then downgraded that to an “injury” singular when pressed. Boudreau did admit that the aches and pains of the grueling NHL season have taken their toll.
Ovechkin wasn’t available to comment this morning. So I asked Boudreau how his star winger handled the criticism he took early in the year when his production plummeted. Knowing what we do today, maybe those injuries played a greater role. There were plenty of theories being fired about at the time – injury, power-play woes, a tweaked system emphasizing defense. Did it get to the 25-year-old.
“I can’t answer that. He’s pretty quiet. I will say that he’s a very proud person and he cares very much what happens to this hockey club,” Boudreau said. “So if he’s not playing well and if the team’s not doing well he’s probably taking it home with him….Again, I don’t want to make excuses for him and Alex wouldn’t make excuses for himself. But I don’t know. It all could. Or it may not. It depends on how you guys want to spin it.”
The timing isn’t great, of course. Boudreau would like to set his lines before the playoffs start in three weeks. Such is life. The Caps have dealt with injuries to key players for weeks and thrived. We’ll see if that continues. Ovechkin was also back on track. He was way off pace through the season’s first 46 games with 15 goals and 30 assists (45 points). In the 27 games since then he has 14 goals and 18 assists (32 points). Ovechkin has pushed himself back among the NHL’s scoring leaders in points (77), where he ranks sixth, and assists (48), where he is fifth overall.
“[It’s difficult] when people are coming at you – ‘What’s wrong, what’s this, what’s that’ and you kind of have to keep your mouth shut andjust keep playing,” said veteran forward Mike Knuble. “And obviously [Ovechkin] kept showing up and playing and trying the best he could. I don’t know if there was anything obvious that we could see or if he looked like he was laboring. But he was our captain and he was going to show up and play as hard as he can every night.”
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